Abstract

The agricultural sector is vital for the Greek economy, the Greek producers and consumers. The new era in agriculture leads scientists to find new more effective ways to estimate plant growth and biomass production and to increase water use efficiency. Given the above, a research project was organized at the Laboratory of Agricultural Hydraulics, University of Thessaly. For the first time in the climatic conditions of Central Greece, the project aims to assess another method to estimate the growth and biomass production of corn, based on multispectral photos and vegetation indices using a low cost multispectral camera and drone. Three surface drip irrigation treatments in three replications were organized and a randomized complete block design was used. The crop water needs were calculated according to the daily evapotranspiration using the Penman-Monteith procedure as it was presented by the Food Agricultural Organisation. The amount of water in each treatment was equal to A) 100% of the daily evapotranspiration (ETo), B) 75% of the ETo, and C) 50% of the ETo. Vegetation indices were calculated based on multispectral photos taken from a drone and the Simple and Multiple Regression analysis were used to estimate the maize growth and biomass production in Greek conditions. Different equations were formed to estimate the maize growth and biomass production and vegetation indices were used as independent variables. The results showed that vegetation indices can be used in the agriculture process to estimate maize growth and biomass production. In this paper the results of two consecutive years, 2018 and 2019 are presented.

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