A Modified Ratio Vegetation Index: A Novel Method For Remote Estimation Of Leaf Chlorophyll Content For Winter Wheat

Leaf chlorophyll content was a mediate indicator for monitoring winter wheat growing status. Based on 8-day composited time series dataset of MODIS surface reflectance with 1 km spatial resolution, a new Modified Ratio Vegetation Index (MRVI) was developed for monitoring leaf chlorophyll content of winter wheat in Hengshui City, Hebei Province of China. Comparing with the existing vegetation indexes, MRVI showed the better linear correlation with leaf chlorophyll content, with R-2 of 0.62 and RMSE of 8.34. The MRVI also revealed spatial patterns of leaf nitrogen status of winter wheat all over the Hengshui City in 2017, with R-2 of 0.73 in pure pixels and R-2 of 0.59 in all pixels. Our results demonstrated that MRVI would be a timely, economically and promising way for monitoring winter wheat nutritional condition from MODIS data in the future.