Deriving the Leaf Area Index of Silage Maize Using Digital Hemispherical Photography Method (Case Study: Qaleh-Now Farms, South of Tehran)

The present study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of digital hemispherical photography (DHP) in deriving LAI in silage maize farms in the south of Tehran. For this purpose, the DHP as well as destructive measurements for comparison were used to estimate LAI in silage maize farms in Qaleh-Now County in the south of Tehran in 2018 considering the nature of spatio-temporal variability in agricultural fields during a growing season. The results showed LAI obtained through DHP at different periods of plant growth has a strong linear correlation with the values measured by the destructive method (R2 = 0.92, RMSE = 0.45 and Bias = 0.31). However, the intermediate LAI range (LAI: 2 -