Ps. Thenkabail et al., THEMATIC MAPPER VEGETATION INDEXES FOR DETERMINING SOYBEAN AND CORN GROWTH-PARAMETERS, Photogrammetric engineering and remote sensing, 60(4), 1994, pp. 437-442
The use of thematic mapper data to study crop growth parameters has pr
imarily been conducted with hand-held and truck-mounted radiometers. I
n addition, most studies have not used mid-infrared bands to develop v
egetation indices. This study used Landsat thematic mapper data and cr
op parameter data from corn and soybean fields in northern Ohio (1) to
develop plant-water sensitive vegetation indices that included the mi
d-infrared, near-infrared, and red bands; and (2) to compare the abili
ty of different vegetation indices to estimate crop yield, leaf area i
ndex, wet biomass, dry biomass, and plant height. Indices which includ
ed the mid-infrared thematic mapper bands 5 and 7 performed equal to o
r better than the widely used near-infrared band 4 and red band 3. The
best relationships between vegetation indices and crop parameters had
Spearman non-parametric correlation coefficients of 0.80 to 0.89 for
all parameters except crop yield which was not highly correlated with
the vegetation indices.