Grapevine leaf water potential based upon near infrared spectroscopy

Leaf water potential is a measure commonly used to describe crop water status and water stress dynamics. The established method for determining leaf water potential using a pressure chamber is cumbersome and subject to operator error as well as time/temperature limitations. These limitations prohibit the intensive sampling required to support proactive water management of commercial crops, including vineyards. Particular for grapevines there is need for faster, more precise and more reliable tools for determining leaf water potential in the field. Portable Near-infrared spectroscopy and multivariate data analysis were applied for the modeling and prediction of leaf water potential in grapevines. For field-grown wine grapes the most significant and intensive leaf absorptions occurs in the region from 1440 to 1950 nm and again beyond 2,200 nm. Multivariate analysis of these spectra, referenced against pressure chamber measurements as a standard, showed correlation coefficients from 0.87 to 0.95 clearly demonstrated that this technology can provide a fast and reasonable assessment of leaf water potential in the field.