KWRA
Measurement of leaf area index (LAI) is useful for understanding rice growth, water use, and canopy light interception. The top nitrogen content(TNC) per unit area is an important quantitative index of the condition of nitrogen nutrition in rice production. The rapid and simple method of estimation of TNC, with the use of the existing nondestructive analyzing instruments chlorophyll meter SPAD-502 and plant canopy analyzer (PCA) LAI-2000, was scrutinized. Destructive measurement is time consuming and labor intensive. Our objective was to evaluate sampling procedures using the Li-Cor LI-1800, LAI 2000 plant canopy analyzer(PCA) for nondestructive estimation of rice LAI, and SPAD-502 on the Northern Plains of Cheongju. The LAI estimated by PCA tended to underestimate the LAI determined by actual measurement by about 20%. The estimation of LAI by PCA was judged to have a sufficient accuracy as a practical technique. A high positive correlation was obtained between the values of the SPAD reading and LAI. NDVI and LAI also showed a very high correlation. Thevalues of the SPAD reading and LAI, and NDVI gave a high positive correlation. These results indicated that the method described in this study was effective as a simple and rapid method for the estimation of rice growth.