Purdue Agronomy Farm Corn Cultural Practices (791803)

<p>The objectives of this experiment are to determine (1) the threshold of early season spectral detection of corn, (2) the spectral response of corn as a function of growth and amount of vegetation, and (3) the effect of soil background differences, particularly soil color, on the spectral response and early detection of corn. The treatments were as follows:</p>

<ul>
<li>3 Planting Dates (May 2, 16, and 30)</li>
<li>3 Plant Populations (25,000, 50,000 and 75,000 plants per hectare)</li>
<li>2 Soil Types (Chalmers, "darker" and Fincastle, "lighter")</li>
</ul>

<p>A split plot design with two replications was used. Spectral measurements, along with agronomic characterizations of the canopies and surface soil, were made at approximately weekly intervals throughout the growing season.</p>

<p>The spectral reflectance measurements were made with a Landsat band radiometer (Exotech Model 100). Radiant temperatures and overhead color photographs of the canopies were obtained simultaneously with the reflectance measurements.</p>

<p>The major agronomic measurements of the plots included growth stage, percent soil cover, height, leaf area index, biomass, and surface soil moisture and condition. Grain yields were measured at harvest time.</p>

<p>The test took place in 1979. The supporting docs include a brief summary of used instruments, a wavelength table (Wavelength_ASCII.txt), reflectance note and reflectance tables (ReflectanceTable206.txt and ReflectanceTableMulti.txt), and file format description (ExperimentDataFormat3.txt). The format description file is in ASCII format in lines of 80 characters. This research dataset is part the Field Research Data Library that consists of over 200,000 spectral observations of soils and vegetation that have been collected since 1972 till 1991 as part of the research focused on vegetation and soils at the Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing (LARS) located at the Purdue University.</p>