Seasonal Ground Cover for Crops In the Texas High Plains.

Crop ground cover (GC) is a canopy characteristic useful in determining light absorption and transpiration.  Recently, methods have been developed to estimate crop GC from satellite or aircraft remote sensing imagery.  This allows the assessment of GC for numerous agricultural fields across a region.  In this study, we report generalized GC trends across the growing season for a variety of crops grown in the Texas High Plains.  Data for the study comes from Landsat-5 and Landsat-7 observations over a five-year period of fields in the Texas Alliance for Water Conservation (TAWC) Demonstration Project.  These fields include all the major crops in the region, including cotton, corn, sorghum, sunflower, and pasture.