Water status and plant traits of dry bean assessment using integrated spectral reflectance and RGB image indices with artificial intelligence

This study investigated the potential of using remote sensing indices with artificial neural networks (ANNs) to quantify the responses of dry bean plants to water stress. Two field experiments were conducted with three irrigation regimes: 100% (B100), 75% (B75), and 50% (B50) of the full irrigation requirements. Various measured parameters including, wet biomass (WB), dry biomass (DB), canopy moisture content (CMC), soil plant analysis development (SPAD), and soil water content (SWC) as well as seed yield (SY) were evaluated. The results showed that the highest values for WB, DB, CMC, SWC, and SY were achieved under B100, while the highest SPAD values were achieved under B75. The study also found that most of the RGB image indices (RGBIs) and spectral reflectance indices (SRIs) exhibited a linear relationship with the measured parameters and SY, with R² values ranging from 0.34 to 0.95. In contrast, SPAD showed a significant quadratic relationship, with R² values ranging from 0.34 to 0.79. Additionality, the newly developed SRIs demonstrated 5–40% higher correlations compared to the best-performing published SRIs across all measured parameters and SY. ANNs using RGBIs and SRIs separately demonstrated high prediction accuracy with R² values ranging from 0.79 to 0.97 and 0.86 to 0.97, respectively. Combining the RGBIs and SRIs, the ANNs achieved higher prediction accuracy, with R² values ranging from 0.88 to 0.99 across different parameters. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the effectiveness of using SRIs and RGBIs with ANNs as practical tools for managing the growth and production of dry bean crops under deficit irrigation.