Assessment of Water and Nitrogen Use Efficiencies Through UAV-Based Multispectral Phenotyping in Winter Wheat

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based remote sensing is a promising approach for non-destructive and high-throughput assessment of crop water and nitrogen (N) efficiencies. In this study, UAV was used to evaluate two field trials using four water (T0 = 0 mm, T1 = 80 mm, T2 = 120 mm, and T3 = 160 mm), and four N (T0 = 0, T1 = 120 kg ha^–1, T2 = 180 kg ha^–1, and T3 = 240 kg ha^–1) treatments, respectively, conducted on three wheat genotypes at two locations. Ground-based destructive data of water and N indictors such as biomass and N contents were also measured to validate the aerial surveillance results. Multispectral traits including red normalized difference vegetation index (RNDVI), green normalized difference vegetation index (GNDVI), normalized difference red-edge index (NDRE), red-edge chlorophyll index (RECI) and normalized green red difference index (NGRDI) were recorded using UAV as reliable replacement of destructive measurements by showing high r values up to 0.90. NGRDI was identified as the most efficient non-destructive indicator through strong prediction values ranged from R² = 0.69 to 0.89 for water use efficiencies (WUE) calculated from biomass (WUE.BM), and R² = 0.80 to 0.86 from grain yield (WUE.GY). RNDVI was better in predicting the phenotypic variations for N use efficiency calculated from nitrogen contents of plant samples (NUE.NC) with high R² values ranging from 0.72 to 0.94, while NDRE was consistent in predicting both NUE.NC and NUE.GY by 0.73 to 0.84 with low root mean square errors. UAV-based remote sensing demonstrates that treatment T2 in both water 120 mm and N 180 kg ha^–1 supply trials was most appropriate dosages for optimum uptake of water and N with high GY. Among three cultivars, Zhongmai 895 was highly efficient in WUE and NUE across the water and N treatments. Conclusively, UAV can be used to predict time-series WUE and NUE across the season for selection of elite genotypes, and to monitor crop efficiency under varying N and water dosages.