Publications

Miao, L; Zhu, YH; Hao, Y; Pu, RL; Qiu, CX; Fa, Z; Han, SY; Xu, WM; Yan, M; Long, HL; Yang, GJ (2022). Prediction of apple first flowering date using daily land surface temperature spatio-temporal reconstruction and machine learning. COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE, 202, 107366.

Abstract
The first flowering date (FFD) is a critical phenological parameter closely related to the apple yield, so the ac-curate prediction of the FFD is important for precise orchard production management. Existing methods to predict the FFD are mostly based on air temperature (Ta) measured at meteorological stations, but to great differences in meteorological variations and the ecological conditions, these methods cannot present the dif-ferences of FFD under complex meteorological conditions and provide spatially continuous FFD information at the level of a region. Therefore, we propose a method to predict spatially continuous apple FFD from remote sensing land surface temperature (LST) based on flowering prediction model. Firstly, the missing LST data were reconstructed by using spatio-temporal reconstruction (STR) approach developed. Next, new air temperature (NAT) data were generated by using the daily Ta estimation (DTE) model and the reconstructed LST. Finally, apple FFD was predicted by the NAT data and the apple flowering prediction model established based on random forest (RF) algorithm and the phenology sequential model, and the prediction accuracy was verified by com-parison with the independently measured apple FFD. The LST reconstructed by using the STR approach has mean absolute error (MAE) ranging from 0.51 to 0.68 degrees C, and root mean square error (RMSE) ranging from 1.07 to 1.21 degrees C. The MAE between the NAT data and the High-Resolution Land Surface Data Assimilation System (HR-CLDAS) meteorological data ranges from 2.15 to 3.23 degrees C, and the RMSE ranges from 2.81 to 4.27 degrees C. In addition, the determination coefficient (R2) and RMSE between the predicted and measured FFD is 0.72 and 2.96 days, respectively. These results demonstrate that the developed method maximizes the potential of MODIS LST in predicting spatially continuous apple FFD, which is valuable for flower and fruit thinning, to defend against frost disasters, and in general for refined orchard production management.

DOI:
10.1016/j.compag.2022.107366

ISSN:
1872-7107