Using Active Optical Sensing for Determining Pasture Growth Rate Using a Light Use Efficiency Model

Abstract

The ability to quantify pasture biomass and growth rate is of prime importance to the sustainability and profitability of extensive livestock industries, specifically as it relates to provide information for better farm management decisions. Assessment of pasture growth rate (PGR, kg/ha.day) using remote sensing has gained considerable interest to the farm managers for livestock grazing management. The context of this research is to investigate the use of in situ sensors and a light use efficiency (LUE) model to estimate PGR. A key parameter in this model is the light interception by the canopy, or fAPAR. Measuring fAPAR using active optical sensors (AOS) introduces new challenges hitherto not appreciated using traditional passive optical sensors and so a considerable portion of this work focusses on the derivation of fAPAR from a widely used optical reflectance index, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Therefore this research project comprises of two main components: (i) investigating an AOS to infer the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fAPAR) by the plant, a key variable in LUE model; and (ii) evaluating the LUE model using in situ sensors for estimating of PGR (kg/ha.day) at the sub field scale.