Estimation of Tobacco Leaf Area by a Non-destructive Method

The leaf area index (AFI) is an important variable when evaluating the growth, development and possible productivity of a crop. The objective of this article was to determine mathematical models that allow estimating the leaf area of tobacco from measurements of dimensions of length and width of tobacco leaves. The experimental design used was in blocks with four replications and two planting times. The treatments consisted of five commercial cultivars of Virginia type tobacco and Burley type. Of which the leaves were detached from the stem, and these leaves were fractionated in limbo and petiole. Its leaves were 10 models were obtained to estimate the leaf area of tobacco. All the models presented a significant test to estimate the leaf area. The power and quadratic models presented values of determination coefficients higher than linear models. It had the best results with the nonlinear power and quadratic model, using the squared width multiplied by length. Therefore, the measurements of the leaf area of tobacco can be estimated from potential, linear and quadratic equations with good precision. The models that use linear squared width measurements multiplied by leaf limbo length satisfactorily estimate the leaf area of tobacco.