Precision Agric

DOI 10.1007/s11119-013-9322-9

Using high resolution UAV thermal imagery to assess

the variability in the water status of five fruit tree species
within a commercial orchard

V. Gonzalez-Dugo • P. Zarco-Tejada • E. Nicolás • P. A. Nortes •

J. J. Alarcón • D. S. Intrigliolo • E. Fereres

Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Abstract This paper deals with the assessment of heterogeneity in water status in a
commercial orchard, as a prerequisite for precision irrigation management. Remote
sensing-derived indicators could be suitable for mapping water stress over large areas, and
recent studies have demonstrated that high resolution airborne thermal imagery enables the
assessment of discontinuous canopies as pure tree crowns can be targeted, thus eliminating
the background effects. Airborne campaigns were conducted over a drip-irrigated com-
mercial orchard in Southwestern Spain composed of five different orchard tree crops. An
unmanned aerial vehicle with a thermal camera onboard was flown three times during the
day on 8 July 2010, at 9, 11 and 13 h (local time). Stem water potential was measured at
the same time of the flights. In some irrigation units, irrigation was stopped prior to the
measurement date to induce water deficits for comparative purposes. Several approaches
for using the thermal data were proposed. Daily evolution of the differential between
canopy and air temperature (Tc - Ta) was compared to tree water status. The slope of the
evolution of Tc - Ta with time was well correlated with water status and is proposed as a
novel indicator linked with the stomatal behavior. The Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI)
was calculated with the temperature data from the 13.00 h flight using an empirical
approach for defining the upper and lower limits of Tc - Ta. The assessment of variability

V. Gonzalez-Dugo (&)  P. Zarco-Tejada  E. Fereres

Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible (IAS), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientı́ficas (CSIC),
Alameda del Obispo s/n, 14004 Córdoba, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]

E. Nicolás  P. A. Nortes  J. J. Alarcón

Dept Riego, Centro de Edafologı́a y Biologı́a Aplicada del Segura (CEBAS), Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Cientı́ficas (CSIC), Espinardo, P.O. Box 164, 30100 Murcia, Spain

D. S. Intrigliolo
Centro Desarrollo Agricultura Sostenible, Instituto Valenciano Investigaciones Agrarias (IVIA),
P.O. Box 46113, Moncada, Valencia, Spain

E. Fereres
Department of Agronomy, University of Cordoba, Campus Universitario de Rabanales,
14014 Córdoba, Spain

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in water status was also performed using differences in relative canopy temperatures.
Ample variability was detected among and within irrigation units, demonstrating that the
approach proposed was viable for precision irrigation management. The assessment led to
the identification of water-stressed areas, and to the definition of threshold CWSI values
and associated risks. Such thresholds may be used by growers for irrigation management
based on crop developmental stages and economic considerations.

Keywords Prunus  Citrus  Daily evolution  Canopy temperature  Remote sensing 

Unmanned aerial vehicle

Introduction

Irrigated agriculture is the primary water user in the world, consuming about 85 % of the
total water diverted for various uses worldwide (Jury and Vaux 2007). Although irrigation
is only applied to 18 % of the total cultivated area, it is responsible for 45 % of agricultural
production worldwide, highlighting the importance that irrigation has for food production.
Nevertheless, the competition with other sectors of society and the fluctuations in fresh-
water availability, combined with the expansion of irrigation in recent decades are all
factors that are likely to diminish the share of water that is diverted to agriculture. Fore-
casts provide a scenario where water resources will be even more limiting to irrigated
agriculture (Molden 2007), while the demand for food will increase as a result of
increasing population and dietary changes (Fereres et al. 2011). Hence, looking at the
future, the need to manage irrigation efficiently is of paramount importance, and new tools
enabling the optimization of water productivity will be sought and should be developed.
High-value crops, such as most fruit trees, are very sensitive to water deficits, so their
performance in semi-arid environments is closely related to the irrigation supply. When water
is limited to these crops, irrigation must be monitored in order to optimize water productivity
while maintaining yield and economic return to growers. Knowledge of field heterogeneity
(related to either spatial variability of soil water properties or caused by non-uniform dis-
tribution of irrigation water) becomes a critical issue when water supply for irrigation is
limited. This was outlined in the analysis performed by Fereres and Soriano (2007) who
showed that low uniformity of distribution increases substantially the risks of developing
excessive stress under deficit irrigation. Therefore, assessing the performance of irrigation
systems and quantifying the impact on crop water status of the variability in water application,
are important features to enhance water management in the realm of precision agriculture.
The assessment of variations in tree water status within a well-irrigated ‘‘uniform’’ field is not
an easy task, and requires either many point observations or adapted tools enabling the
characterization of entire fields via appropriate indicators. Such tools that would allow the
monitoring of crop water status over large areas and at low cost are urgently needed.
Indicators derived from high-resolution airborne thermal imagery have been shown to
accurately describe the spatial heterogeneity of water status that is naturally found in
orchards when single tree crowns were targeted, both using manned platforms (Sepulcre-
Cantó et al. 2006) and from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) (Berni et al. 2009b;
Gonzalez-Dugo et al. 2012; Zarco-Tejada et al. 2012). Canopy temperature has been
known to be a proxy for monitoring crop water status since the late 1970s (Idso et al. 1978;
Jackson et al. 1981). Jackson and coworkers proposed the concept of Crop Water Stress
Index (CWSI), defined as the difference between air (Ta) and canopy temperature (Tc),

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normalized for the evaporative demand as determined by means of a lower limit (the case
of a canopy transpiring at its potential rate) and an upper limit (a non-transpiring canopy),
as shown in Eq. (1):
ðTc  Ta Þ  ðTc  Ta ÞLL
CWSI ¼ ð1Þ
ðTc  Ta ÞUL  ðTc  Ta ÞLL
where UL and LL are the upper and lower limits, respectively.
Crop Water Stress Index has been derived from infrared thermometers or thermal
images, either manually handled (Jackson et al. 1981), mounted on a mast or a crane (Testi
et al. 2008a; Wang and Gartung 2010), over an aerial platform (Berni et al. 2009a) or on a
satellite (Barbagallo et al. 2009). Each scale has a different resolution and is useful for
specific purposes. Using thermal information for irrigation management of orchards would
require assessing the trade-offs between high resolution (enabling the identification of pure
crowns and the separation of mixed soil/vegetation pixels) and spatial characterization of
many trees. Cameras mounted on UAV have shown promise in meeting the requirements
needed for orchard irrigation management (Berni et al. 2009b; Zarco-Tejada et al. 2012).
Nevertheless, further research is needed in order to optimize the use of this information for
assessing field heterogeneity, such as determining the optimal spatial resolution required
and the appropriate time of day for image acquisition.
Stagakis et al. (2012) have recently shown that the applicability of spectrally-derived
indices is questionable when image resolution exceeds crown size. Testi et al. (2008a)
obtained baselines for the CWSI in pistachio using infrared thermometers (IRTs) at dif-
ferent times of the day and showed that measurements around midday were most sensitive,
while Sepulcre-Cantó et al. (2006) found that temperature obtained from airborne thermal
imagery earlier in the morning was less affected by background effects than that measured
at noon. Thermal-derived indicators were firstly developed using hand held thermometers.
If airborne thermal imagery is applied, they may require adaptation to be applied
accurately.
Information on the regulating effects of stomatal aperture daily patterns, which is
species-dependant, is necessary to understand the fluctuations in canopy temperatures.
Stomatal response to environmental conditions varies among species and must be taken
into consideration when canopy temperature is proposed as a proxy for plant water status
(Ballester et al. 2012b). Some species such as olive and Citrus have a conservative
behavior and display significant stomatal closure at midday, even under well watered
conditions (Testi et al. 2008b; Moriana et al. 2002). Other crops, such as sunflower, display
dehydration tolerance mechanisms that enable the maintenance of stomatal aperture and a
fluctuating water potential in response to evaporative demand (Fereres 1984). In almond
spp., the stomatal behavior varies between cultivars (Gonzalez-Dugo et al. 2012). Partial
stomatal closure feeds back on leaf temperatures, but it is not known if indicators derived
from airborne thermal imagery have sufficient resolution and are capable of remotely
detecting and differentiating between the behavior of contrasting species.
Following developments of high-resolution thermal imagery using a UAV, (Berni et al.
2009b), the hypothesis under study is that it would be possible to develop tools to accu-
rately assess tree water status in commercial orchards derived from airborne thermal
imagery for irrigation management purposes. The requirements for such an objective
include: (i) establishing a tight relationship with tree water status, (ii) sufficient spa-
tial resolution to enable targeting pure crowns, avoiding mixed soil/vegetation pixels,
(iii) ability to assess entire commercial orchards in single flights, and (iv) quick

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turn-around times for data acquisition and processing to provide real-time water status
maps to aid in decision making.
The work reported here sought to assess the precision and usefulness of thermal aerial
imagery acquired from a UAV in diurnal airborne campaigns carried out at three times
over the course of the day. The goal was to characterize the spatial variations in tree water
status among areas within a commercial orchard where five different fruit tree species were
grown, and to assess the variability in tree water status within irrigated management units
that could be deduced via precision irrigation in the future.

Materials and methods

Field description

The study was carried out in a 42 ha commercial orchard located in Mula Valley, Murcia,
Spain (378550 N, 18260 W). The soil is of clay loam texture and classified as Xeric Torri-
orthent. Additional information on the site has been recently reported by Perez-Sarmiento
et al. (2010). The climate is semi-arid mediterranean, with hot and dry summers; annual
reference evapotranspiration (ETo) and rainfall in 2010 were 1 182 and 445 mm,
respectively. The orchard is composed of fields planted in 1999 of five different tree crop
species: almond (Al; Prunus dulcis cv. Garrigues and cv. Ramillete); apricot (Ap; Prunus
armeniaca cv. Bulida); peach (Pe; Prunus persica cv. Catherine); lemon (Le; Citrus x
limon cv. Fino 49); and orange (Or; Citrus sinensis cv. Lanelate). A layout of the orchard
with the different irrigation units is shown in Fig. 1, and some specific orchard features are
described in Table 1.
Trees were daily irrigated using an automated drip system with five emitters at 4 l h-1
per tree in almond, apricot and lemon, and three emitters at 4 l h-1 per tree in peach and
orange. Within the areas devoted to almond, peach and lemon production, irrigation was
stopped in a single management unit 8 days prior to the measurement date to induce some
water deficits for comparative purposes. In the case of apricot, the crop had been harvested
prior to the measurement date and water applications were limited for the previous
24 days, thus some water stress had developed throughout the whole apricot area. Irri-
gation was also interrupted for 8 days in an orange plot (Or-ww2), but water stress
developed was very mild and no differences were found relating to the other orange plots.

Airborne imagery

A thermal camera (MIRICLE 307, Thermoteknix Systems Ldt., Cambridge, UK) was
installed on a 2 m wingspan fixed–wing UAV platform, giving up to 1 h flight at 5.8 kg
take-off weight (TOW) (mX-SIGHT, UAV Services and Systems, Germany). The UAV
platform was controlled by an autopilot for autonomous flying (AP04, UAV Navigation,
Madrid, Spain) and followed a flight plan using waypoints to acquire imagery from the
entire orchard under study. The autopilot had a dual CPU controlling an integrated Attitude
Heading Reference System (AHRS) based on a L1 GPS board, 3-axis accelerometers,
gyros and a 3-axis magnetometer (Berni et al. 2009b). The ground control station and the
UAV were radio-linked, transmitting position, altitude and status data at 20 Hz frequency;
this tunneling transmission link was used for the operation of the thermal imager from the
ground station deployed near the study site. The UAV was flown over the commercial
orchard on 8 July 2010 three times during the day; at 09.00, 11.00 and 13.00 h (local time;

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Fig. 1 Aerial view of the orchard and its irrigation management units. Al, Or, Ap, Le and Pe correspond to
almond, orange, apricot, lemon and peach, respectively. Solid line indicate the plots that were fully irrigated
(-ww plots), while dotted lines correspond with the plots where irrigation was withheld prior to the flights
(-d plots)

Table 1 Orchard characteristics

Species Planting Ground Number
and irrigation units
grid (m) cover irrigation units

Almond cvs. Garrigues 698 0.40 3 (1)

and Ramillete
Apricot cv. Bulida 698 0.65 2 (1)
In number irrigation units Peach cv. Catherine 496 0.48 4 (2)
column, the number of IU where Lemon cv. Fino 49 698 0.41 2 (1)
water was withheld is shown in Orange cv. Lanelate 496 0.51 3 (0)
brackets

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UTC ? 1 h). Flight elevation was 370 m above the ground. In the afternoon of the pre-
vious day, a flight was carried out over the orchard and the thermal images acquired were
processed in the following hours to identify the areas best suited for ground monitoring of
tree water status. This flight was identical to the flights made on 8 July, the flight plan and
altitude were as the others described above. The camera has a resolution of 640 9 480
pixels with a field of view of 458 that delivered an approximate ground resolution (pixel
size) of 0.49 m. The camera acquired imagery in the 8–12 lm spectral region at a sen-
sitivity B50 mK. Although a calibration/validation study has not been published yet
regarding the accuracy of this camera, another study already demonstrated acceptable
results obtained with this camera for water stress detection (Zarco-Tejada et al. 2012),
where a coefficient of determination of r2 = 0.78 was found between camera-derived
surface temperature and leaf stomatal conductance measured in the field at the time of the
flights.

Image processing

Surface temperature was retrieved from the airborne thermal imagery as in Zarco-Tejada
et al. (2012). Single tree crown temperature was extracted from the imagery using an
automated object-based method for conducting the image segmentation. An algorithm was
applied afterwards to restrict the shape of the regions of interest for each tree crown
excluding crown edges and avoiding mixed pixels of soil and vegetation. Only the central
parts of the imagery were used to avoid border effects on the image-derived temperature.
Due to the large along- and cross-track overlapping achieved during the flight ([70 %), the
resulting thermal mosaics were not affected by pixels falling on the edge of the imagery.
These procedures were conducted using algorithms developed at the QuantaLab/IAS–
CSIC to ensure that the large thermal mosaics were not affected by off-nadir pixels
acquired on each single frame. In addition, the automatic segmentation method used in this
study selected only 50 % of the central pixels from each tree crown, ensuring that only
pure-vegetation tree crown pixels were chosen, thus avoiding edge effects caused by soil
temperature and shadows.

Field measurements

A team of five pressure chambers and operators was assembled to measure the water status
of selected trees of the five species. Those trees were selected based on the information
obtained from a preliminary flight the day before. This flight (with the same characteristics
as those described above) was carried out to assess the degree of variability in thermal
imaging across the orchard in order to locate the ground observations to adequately cover
the range of differences detected. Table 2 presents the characteristics of each IU of each
crop, the total number of trees and the number of trees used for measuring stem water
potential (SWP) to assess tree water status. To measure SWP, shadowed leaves located
near the tree trunk were covered with aluminum foil for at least 90 min before measure-
ment. Measurements were made simultaneously with five different pressure bombs (Soil
Moisture Equipment Corp, CA, USA) around the time of flights. Weather conditions at the
time of flights were recorded with a portable weather station (Model WXT510, Vaisala,
Finland) placed just outside the orchard. Mean values for the weather parameters at the
times of flight are shown in Table 3. These values fell into the averages for the region and
the time of the year.

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Table 2 Characteristics of IUs,

Species I.U. Withholding Area Total Monitored
number of total trees and trees
irrigation (ha) trees trees
where SWP was measured
Almond Al-ww1 No 1.48 298 11
Al-ww2 No 2.62 540 –
Al-d Yes 2.06 441 12
Apricot Ap-ww No 0.91 137 6
Ap-d Yes 4.85 734 4
Peach Pe-ww1 No 0.77 306 –
Pe-ww2 No 0.37 147 8
Pe-d1 Yes 0.39 143 –
Pe-d2 Yes 0.41 142 7
Lemon Le-ww No 5.72 1 039 9
Le-d Yes 5.74 1 073 9
Orange Or-ww1 No 1.26 421 12
Or-ww2 No 1.14 470 6
Or-ww3 No 1.15 530 –

Table 3 Weather conditions at

Time Air temperature VPD Wind speed
the times of flight
flight (K) (kPa) (m s-1)

09.00 295.7 1.34 0.1

11.00 302.2 2.63 1.7
13.00 305.7 3.76 1.9

CWSI determinations

Crop Water Stress Index was estimated at 13.00 for the five species considered according
to Eq. 1. The following empirical approach was followed to estimate the upper and lower
baseline temperature limits needed to compute the CWSI. We hypothesized that the coolest
5 % of the tree crowns extracted from the well irrigated areas were transpiring at a rate
determined only by the evaporative demand, and thus their canopy temperatures (Tc) were
assumed to be at the lower limit (LL). This methodology has already been described by
Rud et al. (2012) and Alchanatis et al. (2010), although the former used the lowest decile.
This determination was carried out separately for each of the five species. The upper limit
(UL) was established for the different species assuming a fixed value related to Ta, as in
Cohen et al. (2005). Specifically, in our experiment, UL was defined as Ta ? 2 for the
Prunus sp. and Ta ? 4 for the Citrus sp. These fixed values were established in accordance
with the methodology originally proposed by Idso et al. (1981), where the UL is related to
the intercept of the non-water stressed baselines (NWSB) corrected for Ta. To our
knowledge, no NWSB has been published for trees of the Prunus genus that can be used to
establish the UL. Hence, the value used in this study was based on data available for
pistachio (Testi et al. 2008a) and olive (Berni et al. 2009a). For Citrus, the fixed value has
been adapted from lime (Sepaskhah and Kashefipour 1994) and from data obtained in an
orange orchard in Andalusia (unpublished).

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Statistical analysis

The coefficient of variation (CV) of the Tc was calculated for each irrigation unit and each flying
time as the ratio between standard deviation and mean value. Given that Tc - Ta could achieve
positive and negative values, the CV calculations were performed solely on crown Tc values.
The normality of the frequency distribution of CWSI within each field was checked by
the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test. The analysis of shape and measure of the distribution was
performed by means of the Skewness and Kurtosis indices with the SPSS Ò software (IBM
Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA).

Results

The average canopy-air temperature differentials for the three flights and all five species
are presented in Fig. 2. In the Prunus spp., there were clear cut Tc - Ta differences
between the well-watered and the stressed fields for the three measurement times, with the
differences increasing as time of day progressed (Fig. 2). There was a considerable change
in Tc - Ta from morning to midday; at 09.00 h the values were positive (the canopy
being warmer than the air) but they became negative for both the well-watered and
stressed irrigation units, although the fully irrigated canopies were cooler and conse-
quently, Tc - Ta was more negative than in the stressed plots (Fig. 2). The IU Pe-d2
displayed the highest Tc values at every temperature measurement.
The Tc - Ta of well-watered plots of the three Prunus species behaved similarly, i.e., Tc
becoming more negative than Ta as time went on. The Tc - Ta of Citrus, changed between
09.00 and 11.00 h from positive to negative, but contrary to the three Prunus species, the
Tc - Ta either stayed constant or even increased in the third flight around midday (Fig. 2).
Figure 3 presents the relationship between Tc - Ta and SWP for each of the species and
at the three times of flight. At 09.00, although the two parameters were highly correlated in
Citrus, apricot and peach, the Tc - Ta generally displayed positive values in all species
and changed little in response to variations in SWP (Fig. 3). Canopy temperatures mea-
sured at 11.00 and 13.00 h were better correlated to SWP in all species, although there
were some differences among them. In apricot and peach, the regression lines became
steeper as the morning advanced while, in almond, the regressions maintained similar
slopes (Fig. 3). In Citrus, the low range of variation in water status hindered assessment of
the tendency. Values of SWP ranged between -0.5 and -1.0 MPa, which correspond to
well-watered situations (Ballester et al. 2012a). The coefficient of determination of each
relationship and the significance level are shown in Table 4.
On a typical summer day, evaporative demand increases as the day advances and
transpiration rate would increase too, leading to cooler canopies. Figure 4 relates the
change of Tc - Ta between 11.00 and 13.00 h to the tree water status quantified and the
average SWP measured around the two flights. There is a clear relationship for the three
Prunus which approximated a second order polynomial regression, with a correlation
coefficient of 0.65. In contrast, there is no apparent relationship for Citrus, probably due to
the small range of variation in tree water status (Fig. 4).

Analysis of the variability in canopy temperatures

The degree of variation in Tc among trees within the same irrigation management unit is
not generally known. To characterize such variability, the CV of Tc was determined for

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4 4

2 2
Tc-Ta (K)

Tc-Ta (K)
0 0
8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00
-2 -2

Al-ww1 Or_ww1
-4 -4
Al-ww2 Or_ww2
Al-d Or_ww3
-6 Local time -6 Local time

4 4

2 2
Tc-Ta (K)
Tc-Ta (K)

0 0
8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00

-2 -2

-4 -4
Le-ww
Ap-ww
Le-d
Ap-d
-6 Local time -6 Local time

2
Tc-Ta (K)

0
8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00

-2
Pe-ww1
-4 Pe-ww2
Pe-d1
Pe-d2
-6 Local time

Fig. 2 Evolution of canopy minus air temperatures (Tc - Ta; K) at three times of the day. Left column
almond (Al), apricot (Ap) and peach (Pe), right column orange (Or) and lemon (Le). Data from the plots
where the irrigation was withheld are shown in dotted lines. Vertical bars indicate the standard deviation

each IU and for the three measurement times (Table 5). All CV values were between 0.010
and 0.051, which are quite low, and the extremes (minimum and maximum) were found in
apricot. With the one exception of the Ap-d IU, the maximum CV values were found at
13.00 h. No difference in CV values was found between well-watered and stressed plots.

Determination of the CWSI

The calculation of the CWSI was inaccurate at 9:00, because the low range of VPD and air
temperature resulted in a small range of temperature differences between the limits, of only
around 2 K. This value was too close to the thermal resolution of the images, estimated

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3 2
2 1
1
0
0

Tc-Ta (K)
-1.2 -1.0 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 -1 0.0

Tc-Ta (K)
-4.0 -3.0 -2.0 -1.0 -1 0.0
-2 -2
-3 -3
-4 -4
-5 -5
-6
-6
SWP (MPa) -7 SWP (MPa)
Almond Orange

3 2
2 1
1
0
0

Tc-Ta (K)
Tc-Ta (K)

-1.2 -1.0 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0.0

-4.0 -3.0 -2.0 -1.0 -1 0.0 -1
-2 -2
-3 -3
-4
-4
-5
-6 -5
-7 -6
SWP (MPa) SWP (MPa)
Apricot Lemon

3
2
1
Tc-Ta (K)

0
-4.0 -3.0 -2.0 -1.0 -1 0.0 9:00
-2
11:00
-3
-4 13:00
-5
-6
-7
Peach SWP (MPa)

Fig. 3 Relationships between canopy minus air temperature (Tc - Ta; K) measured at three times of the
day and the stem water potential (SWP; MPa) for the five tree species. Each point represented data from an
individual tree

Table 4 Coefficient of determination for the relationships plotted in Fig. 3

Almond Apricot Peach Lemon Orange
(n = 20) (n = 10) (n = 10) (n = 10) (n = 18)

9:00 0.18 (n.s.) 0.91** 0.96** 0.5* 0.24*

11:00 0.63** 0.82** 0.96** 0.63* 0.37*
13:00 0.67** 0.64** 0.92** 0.48* 0.27*

The asterisks indicate the level of significance (* p \ 0.05, ** p \ 0.001, n.s. not significant)

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Fig. 4 Relationship between the Almond 2

change in Tc - Ta between 11.00 Apricot
and 13.00 (K) and the stem water 1.5
Peach
potential (SWP; MPa) for the five
species grown in the orchard. The Orange
1
regression line was fitted only to Lemon
the data of the three Prunus 0.5

Slope Tc-Ta
species (p \ 0.001)
0
-4.00 -3.00 -2.00 -1.00 0.00
-0.5
R² = 0.65
-1

-1.5

-2
SWP (MPa)

Table 5 Coefficient of variation

Flights
of Tc for each IU and for each
flight 9.00 11.00 13.00

Almond
Al-ww1 0.016 0.018 0.020
Al-ww2 0.016 0.024 0.027
Al-d 0.018 0.022 0.026
Apricot
Ap-ww 0.010 0.033 0.043
Ap-d 0.051 0.025 0.032
Peach
Pe-ww1 0.011 0.018 0.031
Pe-ww2 0.011 0.021 0.032
Pe-d1 0.023 0.015 0.027
Pe-d2 0.013 0.024 0.030
Lemon
Le-ww 0.024 0.019 0.027
Le-d 0.016 0.019 0.031
Orange
Or-ww1 0.018 0.010 0.023
Or-ww2 0.014 0.013 0.023
For each IU, maximum value is Or-ww3 0.013 0.012 0.022
showed in bold

around 1 K. The CWSI was calculated using the Tc - Ta values measured at 13.00 h for
every tree crown in the field. The value of the coolest 5 % was lower for the Prunus
species, than in Citrus. The values were 300, 300.5 and 300.6 K for almond, apricot and
peach, and 302.5 and 301.3 K for orange and lemon, respectively. The relationship
between the SWP and the CWSI calculated for the monitored trees is depicted in Fig. 5.
These values of CWSI varied between near zero up to 0.6 for almond and apricot, while the
CWSI approached its maximum value (1.0) in some areas of the peach field. In Citrus, the

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Almond 1.2 1.2

Apricot Orange
1 1
Peach R² = 0.92
Lemon
0.8 0.8
R² = 0.64

CWSI

CWSI
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
R² = 0.67
0.2 0.2
0 0
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 -4 -3 -2 -1 0
-0.2
SWP (MPa) SWP (MPa)

Fig. 5 Plots of crop water stress index (CWSI) as a function of stem water potential for the five tree
species. Regression lines are fitted to the data of the three Prunus sp. in (a), while b the data for the two
Citrus sp. where no significant relationships were found

CWSI values were lower, staying below 0.4, with a few reaching as high as 0.5. The
regression lines are similar to those described for the Tc - Ta vs. SWP relationships of
Fig. 3 for the deciduous tree species. No correlation was found between CWSI and SWP in
Citrus.
The thermal images for the whole orchard were used to compute the CWSI for every
tree crown to develop a map of CWSI. Pure tree crown regions of interest (avoiding soil
background effects) were interpolated by krigging to obtain a map of CWSI, and the results
are shown in Fig. 6. It can be observed that Citrus IUs were generally more uniform than
the Prunus IUs, with the Ap-d and Pe-d2 IUs the most variable, with CWSI ranging
between 0.5 and 1.0.
From the complete CWSI map of the farm, the frequency distribution and the cumu-
lative frequency of CWSI for each IU were derived (Fig. 7). The frequency distributions
for the Pe-d2, Or-ww2, Or-ww3 and Ap-d IUs followed a normal distribution. CWSI
values for the stressed IUs were substantially displaced to higher CWSI values, as com-
pared to those of the well-watered IUs. Even plots that were well- irrigated showed a wide
range in CWSI that demonstrated substantial spatial variability in tree water status within
the irrigation units, as can be seen in the almond, peach and orange fields (Fig. 6).
Comparing well-irrigated IUs, it can be observed that the peach, apricot and lemon dis-
tributions departed from normal, as shown by the extreme values to the right of the average
CWSI (Fig. 6 b, c, e). This was corroborated by the statistical analysis. Skewness was not
statistically different from 0 in the Al-ww1, Or-ww2 and Or-ww3 IUs (Table 6). The other
-ww IUs were significantly different from 0 and positive. Kurtosis analysis showed that
most of the plots (those with a positive coefficient) displayed a distribution flatter than the
normal distribution, highlighting the significant variability in CWSI that occurred naturally
within management units in this orchard.

Discussion

Under water scarcity, suitable indicators of crop water status are becoming even more
relevant to assist in precision irrigation management. Indicators suitable for tracking crop
water status exist (e.g., Fernandez and Cuevas 2010) but they reflect a single plant behavior

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Fig. 6 Map of the CWSI of the orchard, showing the scale from minimum to maximum CWSI

and their representativeness is always in question. Given that deficit irrigation increases the
risks of developing excessive water deficits in some parts of the orchard (Fereres and
Soriano 2007), it is important to have access to tools that can account for the spatial
variability in water status, without resorting to installing an unreasonable number of
sensors that would be needed to characterize it. Thermal imagery acquired remotely
provides a means of characterizing orchard variability and can assist in making decisions
concerning irrigation management in precision agriculture (Alchanatis et al. 2010;
Gonzalez-Dugo et al. 2006; Gonzalez-Dugo et al. 2012). In this work, several approaches
are proposed to apply the thermal information obtained in three flights in a single day to
analyze the spatial variability within irrigation management units.

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0.5 1
0.9

Cumulated frequency
0.4 0.8
Frequency 0.7
0.3 0.6
Al-ww1 Al-ww1
0.5
Al-ww2 Al-ww2
0.2 0.4
Al-d 0.3 Al-d
0.1 0.2
0.1
0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
CWSI CWSI

0.5 1
0.9

Cumulated frequency
0.4 0.8
Frequency

0.7
0.3 0.6
Ap-ww 0.5 Ap-ww
0.2 Ap-d 0.4 Ap-d
0.3
0.1 0.2
0.1
0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
CWSI CWSI

0.5 1
0.9
Cumulated requency

0.4 Pe-ww1
0.8
Frequency

0.7
Pe-ww2
0.3 0.6
Pe-d1 0.5 Pe-ww1
0.2 Pe-d2 0.4 Pe-ww2
0.3 Pe-d1
0.1 0.2
Pe-d2
0.1
0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
CWSI CWSI

0.5 1
0.9
Cumulated frequency

0.4 0.8
Frequency

0.7
0.3 0.6
Or-ww1 Or-ww1
0.5
0.2 Or-ww2 0.4 Or-ww2
Or-ww3 0.3 Or-ww3
0.1 0.2
0.1
0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
CWSI CWSI

0.5 1
0.9
Cumulated frequency

0.4 0.8
Frequency

0.7
0.3 0.6
Le-ww 0.5 Le-ww
0.2 Le-d 0.4 Le-d
0.3
0.1 0.2
0.1
0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
CWSI CWSI

Fig. 7 Left column distribution of the frequency of CWSI values for each species. Right column cumulative
frequency distribution. Vertical lines correspond to the established thresholds

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Table 6 Main features of the frequency distribution of CWSI values within each IU
SWP CWSI

Mean Mean SD CV Skewness Kurtosis

Almond Al-ww1 -1.59 0.24 0.073 0.310 0.293 (±0.141) -0.295 (±0.281)
Al-ww2 N/A 0.15 0.098 0.650 0.507 (±0.105) 3.748 (±0.210)
Al-d -3.04 0.45 0.101 0.230 0.721 (±0.116) 2.559 (±0.232)
Apricot Ap-ww -1.13 0.16 0.166 1.020 1.093 (±0.207) 1.512 (±0.411)
Ap-d -1.99 0.51 0.135 0.268 0.022 (±0.090) 0.974 (±0.180)
Peach Pe-ww1 N/A 0.16 0.123 0.770 1.786 (±0.139) 6.511 (±0.278)
Pe-ww2 -0.73 0.23 0.130 0.555 1.342 (±0.200) 1.646 (±0.397)
Pe-d1 N/A 0.31 0.109 0.370 1.457 (±0.203) 3.247 (±0.403)
Pe-d2 -2.09 0.69 0.129 0.188 0.216 (±0.203) -0.291 (±0.404)
Lemon Le-ww -0.80 0.11 0.081 0.715 0.795 (±0.077) 0.587 (±0.154)
Le-d -0.94 0.28 0.101 0.355 0.369 (±0.076) 0.503 (±0.152)
Orange Or-ww1 -0.67 0.23 0.086 0.365 0.521 (±0.119) 0.585 (±0.237)
Or-ww2 -0.88 0.15 0.084 0.560 0.044 (±0.113) -0.019 (±0.225)
Or-ww3 N/A 0.16 0.083 0.514 0.095 (±0.106) -0.293 (±0.212)

Daily evolution of canopy temperature in orchard crops

The close relationship encountered between Tc - Ta and SWP confirmed the previous
findings on the use of canopy temperature as crop water status indicator in most orchards
(Jackson et al. 1981; Moran et al. 1994; Sepulcre-Cantó et al. 2006; Berni et al. 2009a).
The correlation coefficient of the relationship between Tc - Ta and SWP at 13.00 h
yielded high values for Prunus (R2 between 0.64 and 0.92). The lower values displayed in
Citrus were related to the narrow range of SWP measured in the two Citrus species, which
was indicative of very mild water stress (Ballester et al. 2012a).
Even though canopy temperature is commonly proposed as a proxy for water status
(Idso et al. 1981; Jones 1999a, b), changes in Tc during the day are rarely proposed as an
indicator. In Prunus, the change in Tc - Ta between 11.00 and 13.00 h was found here to
correlate well with the SWP (Fig. 4). In fact, there was a valid correlation in both time
steps considered (from 9.00 to 11.00 and from 11.00 to 13.00). Time of acquisition of
canopy temperature is essential when the slope of Tc - Ta is calculated; more research is
needed to assess the appropriate intervals for the slope calculation. The daily course of
Tc - Ta and its slopes are strongly related to water relations and other aspects of crop
physiology. The regulation of stomatal aperture, either in well-watered and stressed con-
ditions, will determine the Tc - Ta course. The relevance of crop physiology can be clearly
observed when Prunus and Citrus are compared. Citrus are known to be conservative in
water use. The evapotranspiration from well-watered orchards is significantly lower than
the potential evaporation (Goldhamer et al. 2012), and the leaf conductance of Citrus
decreases with increasing vapor pressure deficits (Cohen and Cohen 1983). As stomata
partially close, leaf temperature rises, and hence, Tc - Ta increases, relative to the
behavior of other tree species. This explains the higher values of Tc - Ta encountered in
Citrus, as compared to Prunus, especially at noon.
A positive feature of the analysis of the slopes compared with the absolute values of
Tc - Ta, as a potential water stress indicator, was that it described the stomatal behavior

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during the time considered. This would be an important feature when comparing crops that
are more or less isohydric, and it can be proposed as an indicator of the dynamics of
stomatal regulation.
Moreover, the data seemed to be grouped according to the genus; data from all three
Prunus species fitted a second order polynomial adjustment. Nevertheless, although several
species are compared in this study, and the data were gathered at a single site under the
specific meteorological conditions typical of summer in semi-arid areas, further research
under different conditions is needed to confirm the robustness of these results.

Use of CWSI as a tool for irrigation management

The analysis of the CV of Tc and the comparison between the three different times of the
day demonstrated that data obtained around noon described best the spatial variability of
this parameter. Measurements carried out at midday are generally used as a standard for the
assessment of plant water status (Shackel et al. 1997). Testi et al. (2008a) also showed that
the CWSI in pistachio obtained around midday was most sensitive. The comparison
between Tc - Ta in relation to the baselines needed to compute CWSI, was shown to be
more accurate at 13.00 as compared to data collected at the two other times. Comparing
values obtained at midday in sunny days with contrasting values of VPD, Testi et al.
(2008a) stated that unreliable values of CWSI are obtained when VPD was lower than
2 kPa. In conclusion, CWSI was computed for dataset acquired at 13.00.
CWSI is an accurate indicator that has proven to be well correlated with plant water
status, amply shown in annual crops (Irmak et al. 2000; Wanjura and Upchurch 2000), but
not nearly as common in fruit trees (Sepaskhah and Kashefipour 1994; Testi et al. 2008a;
Berni et al. 2009a). The establishment of this index offers a quantitative framework that
facilitates the interpretation of thermal data of crop canopies. The empirical method used in
this study involves several implications. On the one hand, CWSI enables the comparison of
the species considered and the analysis of the variability within the IU, which is useful
information for decision making concerning irrigation and overall management. On the
other hand, the extrapolation of these results to other orchards or conditions remains
unknown. The development of models enabling the calculation of canopy conductance of
well-irrigated trees (as a method to theoretically assess the NWSB) should provide a
physiological basis for the analytical solution of the limits.
The definition of CWSI and its assessment in the whole area of each irrigation unit
allows quantification of the area that remains above setting thresholds. This analysis can be
used to define irrigation applications. In this experiment, a threshold cannot be accurately
established in Citrus, given the low range of variation that was displayed in both the lemon
and orange IUs (Fig. 5). On that date, apricot was the only species that had been already
harvested, so a suitable SWP threshold for the post-harvest period proposed here would be
around -1.6 MPa (adapted from Naor 2006). It ensures that no damage would result in the
subsequent years. Peach was at the rapid fruit development phase, and hence, water stress
must be avoided (Naor 2006). Girona et al. (2006) proposed a threshold at this stage of
-1.1 MPa. Almond was in the pre-harvest period, so some water stress is desirable in
order to hasten fruit maturation (Goldhamer and Fereres 2004). Hence, the threshold was
set at -2 MPa. According to these values and given the relationships between SWP and
CWSI reported in Fig. 5, the CWSI thresholds to start irrigation would be 0.27, 0.37 and
0.31 for apricot, peach and almond, respectively. These thresholds are plotted in Fig. 7,
where the intersection with the cumulative frequency distributions indicates the percentage
of the IU that was already above this threshold on the day of the flight. The relationships

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between CWSI and SWP used in this calculation were obtained on a single day. For
practical purposes, it would be of interest to replicate the measurements several days
(within the same phenological period) to assess its consistency. In apricot for example,
23 % of the area of Ap-ww was already above the threshold, while almost the totality of
Ap-d (95 %) was already beyond the limit. Once the CWSI threshold has been set
according to the crop and the phenological phase, it remains a management decision
(mainly related to economic considerations) to determine the percentage of area that will
be allowed beyond the limit before the irrigation event is launched. Looking at the future,
if the existing irrigation systems could be manipulated to irrigate independently different
areas of a field, it would be possible to conduct precision irrigation and to minimize tree
stress and water waste.
In peach and almond, the comparison between ww plots sheds light on the water
requirements needed to attain maximum yield in each IU and is closely related with the
plot homogeneity. Pe-ww2 displayed a higher CWSI compared to Pe-ww1, although both
were irrigated the same. It means that Pe-ww2 was more heterogeneous than Pe-ww1
and hence, the irrigation delivery might be increased. The same could be concluded when
Al-ww1 and Al-ww2 are compared.

Conclusion

Indicators derived from thermal imagery acquired from an UAV over a commercial
orchard have been shown to accurately describe the spatial variability in crop water status.
While physiologically-based indicators can be measured in a limited number of trees,
thermal imagery provides information for whole fields and if the resolution is sufficient, as
shown in this study, it allows the mapping of an orchard on a tree by tree basis. It becomes
thus a valuable tool for water management in precision agriculture and deficit irrigation
strategies.
The daily course of thermal-derived indicators was also analyzed. The slope of the
evolution of Tc - Ta with time was well correlated with water status and is proposed as a
promising indicator to track water status. Its main advantage relative to point measure-
ments of temperature is that it encompasses the stomatal behavior for longer periods of
time. Moreover, the indicator behaved similarly for the three Prunus species. More studies
under different conditions are required to assess the robustness of this approach.
The analysis of the variability of Tc demonstrated that data obtained at 13.00 were the
most suitable for describing the spatial variability of canopy temperature; thus, CWSI was
calculated for this time. The methodology proposed here enabled the determination of
CWSI for the whole orchard, tree by tree, based on images of individual flights performed
over an orchard where five tree species were grown commercially. Future work should
determine CWSI thresholds for different species and phenological stages leading to a
quantitative framework suitable for assisting in irrigation management decisions. The
CWSI thresholds would be set based not only on physiological and horticultural responses
to water stress but on economic considerations as well.

Acknowledgments Authors acknowledge K. Gutierrez, D. Notario, R. Romero and A. Vera for their
technical support. This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the projects
CONSOLIDER CSD2006-0067 and AGL2009-13105. We are also grateful to the SIRRIMED (KBBE-
2009-1-2-03) project for providing funds to finance this research. D.S. Intrigliolo and P.A. Nortes
acknowledge the financial support received from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness
program ‘‘Ramón y Cajal’’ and ‘‘Juan de la Cierva’’.

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