ABSTRACT

 Precision agriculture utilizes advance technologies for improving crop production by enhancing efficiency of farm inputs such as that of nitrogen (N) by quantifying and managing in-field variability and increasing profit while reducing environmental impact. Remote sensing based indices such as Normalized Difference Vegetative Index (NDVI) can detect biomass and N variability in crop canopies. Active remote sensing tools such as Green Seeker ^TM can measure NDVI using light reflected from crop canopies. The objective of this study was to determine if NDVI readings can consistently classify multiple wheat genotypes. This study was conducted in north-eastern Colorado for two years, 2010 and 2011. The NDVI readings were taken weekly on 24 winter wheat genotypes from March to June, 2010 and 2011. The results indicate that NDVI readings successfully classified multiple wheat genotypes across dryland and irrigated cropping systems. This study demonstrates the potential of using NDVI readings as a promising tool to differentiate and identifying wheat genotypes.