Estimation of Winter Wheat Tiller Number Based on Optimization of Gradient Vegetation Characteristics

Tiller are an important biological characteristic of wheat, a primary food crop. Accurate estimation of tiller number can help monitor wheat growth and is important in forecasting wheat yield. However, because of leaf cover and other factors, it is difficult to estimate tiller number and the accuracy of estimates based on vegetation indices is low. In this study, a gradual change feature was introduced to optimize traditional prediction models of wheat tiller number. Accuracy improved in optimized models, and model R2 values for three varieties of winter wheat were 0.7044, 0.7060, and 0.7357. The optimized models improved predictions of tiller number in whole wheat fields. Thus, compared with the traditional linear model, the addition of a gradual change feature greatly improved the accuracy of model predictions of wheat tiller number.