Perspectives and insight toward solving flaws of vegetation indices

This perspective manuscript addressed several unsolved questions in vegetation index calculation such as the variation of the spectral fingerprint of crops and the differences in absorbance and reflectance spectral patterns of the young and mature leaves. The spectral shift is evident due to temporal and spatial variations. It means a generalized index, NDVI based on a near-infrared, and a red wavelength cannot precisely express the true meaning of a crops vegetation index. Thus commonly used vegetation indices have high possibility to undermine the actual photosynthetic capability or greenness of crops. Therefore, a crop specific vegetation index based on spectral characteristics in visible regions might be necessary to overcome this limitation of vegetation indices.