A Comparative Assessment of Measures of Leaf Nitrogen in Rice Using Two Leaf-Clip Meters

Accurate estimation and monitoring of crop nitrogen can assist in timely diagnosis and facilitate necessary technical support for fertilizer management. Four experiments, involving three cultivars and six nitrogen (N) treatments, were conducted in southeast China to compare the two leaf-clip meters (Dualex 4 Scientific+, Force-A, Orasy, France; Soil and Plant Analyzer Development (SPAD) meter, Minolta Camera Co., Osaka, Japan) for their ability to measure nitrogen nutrient-related indicators. The results indicated that Chl had a better monitoring accuracy for chlorophyll in per unit leaf area as compared to SPAD value, and there was no saturation to appear under high leaf chlorophyll concentration status. Flavonoids (Flav) presented the advantage of early diagnosis of rice N nutrition status (about one day as compared to SPAD value). As a reliable N nutrient diagnosis indicator, it also improved the estimation accuracy compared with the classical SPAD-based method. The other Dualex value also obtained good monitoring results. Flav was positively correlated with N deficiency, and with higher R² in panicle initiation and booting stages with low RMSE, respectively; whereas SPAD value was negatively correlated with nitrogen deficiency. Therefore, the Flav-based nitrogen application model was found to provide an early rice nitrogen fertilizer application approach, especially in the panicle initiation and booting stages.