Measurements of leaf area index are required in most of agronomic and physiological studies involving plant growth. Two direct methods for estimation of soybean leaf area (leaf dimensions and digital images captured by ordinary digital cameras) were evaluated, in two distinct conditions (entire leaf and damaged leaf). The estimations were compared with measurements taken by a LI-COR® leaf area meter (model LI 3100), used as control. Both methods gave good estimations for entire leaf (R² = 0.983 for leaflet dimensions and R² = 0.997 for digital image). However, the evaluations of damaged leaves showed slightly better performance of digital image method, but a standard error three times lower as compared with leaf dimensions method. As a conclusion, the digital image method using ordinary cameras can replace the reference method (LI 3100) with advantages of lower cost and similar accuracy.
leaf area index; digital imagery; LI-COR®
