Leaf area estimation of Burley tobacco

ABSTRACT: Leaf area is an important growth variable in agricultural crops and the leaf is the main variable of interest in the tobacco industry. So, the aim of this scientific research was to estimate the Burley tobacco leaf area by linear dimensions of the leaves and to determine which mathematical model is more adequate for this purpose. Two experiments were carried out with Burley tobacco, cultivar DBH 2252, in 2016/2017 and 2018/2019 agricultural years, respectively, in the municipalities of Itaqui and Vanini - RS - Brazil. In 600 leaves were measured length (L), width (W), length×width product (LW), length/width ratio (L/W) and determined the real leaf area (LA). Four hundred and fifty leaves were separated to generate models of the leaf area as a function of linear dimension and the other 150 leaves were used for model’s validation. The power model LA = 0.5037LW1.04435 (R² = 0.9960) is the most adequate for Burley tobacco ‘DBH 2252’ leaf area estimation. Alternatively, the models LA=2.0369W1.8619 (R²=0.9796) and LA=0.1222L2.2771 (R²=0.9738) based on width and length, respectively, can be used when only one leaf dimension is measured.