Rapid Analysis of Apple Leaf Nitrogen using Near Infrared Spectroscopy and Multiple Linear Regression

A quick method was developed for diagnosis of nitrogen (N) in apple trees based on multiple linear regressions to establish the relationship between near-infrared reflectance spectra (NIRS) and the N contents of fresh and dry tissue. Spectral pretreatment methods such as derivatives, smoothing, and normalization were used. The derivatives appeared to be the most effective. The best calibration for fresh leaf gave 0.842 for the correlation coefficient of validation (R_v), 1.119 g kg^?1 for the root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP), and 8.311 for the ratio of the range in reference data from the validation samples to the root mean square error of prediction (RER). The best calibration for dried ground samples was obtained with R_v = 0.952, RMSEP = 0.633 g kg^?1, the ratio performance deviation (RPD) = 3.27, and RER = 13.728. The results showed that calibrations of dry-apple leaf are robust enough for an accurate prediction of N.