RGB Vegetation Indices, NDVI, and Biomass as Indicators to Evaluate C 3 and C 4 Turfgrass under Different Water Conditions

José Marín, Salima Yousfi, Pedro V. Mauri, Lorena Parra, Jaime Lloret and Alberto Masaguer
Additional contact information
José Marín: Departamento de Investigación e Innovación, AreaVerde MG projects Madrid, 28050 Madrid, Spain
Salima Yousfi: Departamento de Investigación Agroambiental, Instituto Madrileño de Investigación y Desarrollo Rural, Agrario y Alimentario (IMIDRA), 28800 Madrid, Spain
Pedro V. Mauri: Departamento de Investigación Agroambiental, Instituto Madrileño de Investigación y Desarrollo Rural, Agrario y Alimentario (IMIDRA), 28800 Madrid, Spain
Lorena Parra: Departamento de Investigación Agroambiental, Instituto Madrileño de Investigación y Desarrollo Rural, Agrario y Alimentario (IMIDRA), 28800 Madrid, Spain
Jaime Lloret: Instituto de Investigación para la Gestión Integrada de Zonas Costeras, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, 46730 Grao de Gandia, Valencia, Spain
Alberto Masaguer: Departamento de Producción Agraria, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-16

Abstract: Grasslands have a natural capacity to decrease air pollution and a positive impact on human life. However, their maintenance requires adequate irrigation, which is difficult to apply in many regions where drought and high temperatures are frequent. Therefore, the selection of grass species more tolerant to a lack of irrigation is a fundamental criterion for green space planification. This study compared responses to deficit irrigation of different turfgrass mixtures: a C 4 turfgrass mixture , Cynodon dactylon - Brachypodium distachyon (A), a C 4 turfgrass mixture , Buchloe dactyloides - Brachypodium distachyon (B), and a standard C 3 mixture formed by Lolium perenne - Festuca arundinacea - Poa pratensis (C). Three different irrigation regimes were assayed, full irrigated to 100% (FI-100), deficit irrigated to 75% (DI-75), and deficit irrigated to 50% (DI-50) of container capacity. Biomass, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), green area (GA), and greener area (GGA) vegetation indices were measured. Irrigation significantly affected the NDVI, biomass, GA, and GGA. The most severe condition in terms of decreasing biomass and vegetation indices was DI-50. Both mixtures (A) and (B) exhibited higher biomass, NDVI, GA, and GGA than the standard under deficit irrigation. This study highlights the superiority of (A) mixture under deficit irrigation, which showed similar values of biomass and vegetation indices under full irrigated and deficit irrigated (DI-75) container capacities.

Keywords: turfgrass; C 3 and C 4 plants; deficit irrigation; NDVI; biomass; RGB digital camera indexes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/6/2160/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/6/2160/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:6:p:2160-:d:331095

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().