Landsat data from agricultural sites - Crop signature analysis

The Landsat multispectral scanner (MSS) data have been analyzed with a view toward classification to identify wheat. The notion of spectral signature of a crop, a commonly used basis for classification, has been found to be inadequate. Data analysis has revealed that the MSS data from agricultural sites are essentially two dimensional, and that the data from different sites and different acquisitions lie on parallel planes in the four-dimensional feature space. These results have been exploited to gain new insight into the data and to develop alternate models for classification. In particular, it has been found that the temporal pattern of change in the spectral response of a crop constitutes its signature and provides a basis for crop classification.