Longer L-Band microwaves penetrate further into
canopies. Although this may be advantageous for larger canopies,
when biomass is low greater direct soil and soil-canopy or canopy-soil interactions are expected. The best results for corn were found when HH–HV backscatter was used to estimate LAI (RMSE of 0.91 m2 m-2;MAE of 0.64 m2 m-2). Although L-band was able to estimate LAI of corn with relatively lowerrors, this lower frequency did not adequately estimate LAI for soybeans. With this lower biomass crop, the lowest errors were achieved with VV–HV (RMSE of 1.26 m2 m-2).