Abstract
High-throughput phenotyping using spectral reflectance measurements offers the potential to provide more information for making better-informed management decisions at the crop canopy level in real time. The aim of this study was to investigate the suitability of hyperspectral reflectance measurements of the crop canopy for the assessment of biomass, nitrogen concentration, nitrogen uptake, relative chlorophyll contents, and yield in 2 peanut cultivars, Giza 5 and Giza 6. Peanuts were grown under field conditions and subjected to 3 doses of nitrogen fertilizer with or without the application of 2 bio-fertilizers, Bradyrhizobium spp. or plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria. Simple linear regression of normalized difference spectral indices and partial least square regression (PLSR) were employed to develop predictive models to estimate the measured parameters. The tested spectral reflectance indices were significantly related to all measured parameters with R-2 of up to 0.89. The spectral reflectance index values differed at the same level of nitrogen fertilizer, as well as among the 3 levels of nitrogen fertilizer application for inoculation with Bradyrhizobium and co-inoculation with Bradyrhizobium and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria. The calibration models of PLSR data analysis further improved the results, with R2 values reaching 0.95. The overall results of this study indicate that hyperspectral reflectance measurements monitoring peanut plants enable rapid and non-destructive assessment of biomass, nitrogen status, and yield parameters of peanut cultivars subjected to various agronomic treatments.