A Wavelet Decomposition Method for Estimating Soybean Seed Composition with Hyperspectral Data

Soybean seed composition, particularly protein and oil content, plays a critical role in agricultural practices, influencing crop value, nutritional quality, and marketability. Accurate and efficient methods for predicting seed composition are essential for optimizing crop management and breeding strategies. This study assesses the effectiveness of combining handheld spectroradiometers with the Mexican Hat wavelet transformation to predict soybean seed composition at both seed and canopy levels. Initial analyses using raw spectral data from these devices showed limited predictive accuracy. However, by using the Mexican Hat wavelet transformation, meaningful features were extracted from the spectral data, significantly enhancing prediction performance. Results showed improvements: for seed-level data, Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR), a method used to reduce spectral data complexity while retaining critical information, showed R2 values increasing from 0.57 to 0.61 for protein content and from 0.58 to 0.74 for oil content post-transformation. Canopy-level data analyzed with Random Forest Regression (RFR), an ensemble method designed to capture non-linear relationships, also demonstrated substantial improvements, with R2 increasing from 0.07 to 0.44 for protein and from 0.02 to 0.39 for oil content post-transformation. These findings demonstrate that integrating handheld spectroradiometer data with wavelet transformation bridges the gap between high-end spectral imaging and practical, accessible solutions for field applications. This approach not only improves the accuracy of seed composition prediction at both seed and canopy levels but also supports more informed decision-making in crop management. This work represents a significant step towards making advanced crop assessment tools more accessible, potentially improving crop management strategies and yield optimization across various farming scales.