11While hyperspectral sensors describe plant canopy reflectance in greater detail than multispectral sensors, they also suffer from issues with data redundancy and spectral autocorrelation. Data mining techniques that extract relevant spectral features from hyperspectral data will aid the development of novel sensors for plant trait estimation. The objectives of this research were to 1) compare broad-band reflectance, narrow-band reflectance, and spectral derivatives for estimation of durum wheat traits in the field and 2) develop a genetic algorithm to identify the most relevant spectral features for durum wheat trait estimation. Experiments at Maricopa, Arizona during the winters of 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 tested six durum wheat cultivars with six split-applied nitrogen (N) fertilization rates. Durum wheat traits, including leaf area index, canopy dry weight, and plant N content, were measured from destructive biomass samples on four occassions in each growing season. Grain

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