Sibanda, MbulisiNdlovu, Helen SnethembaOdindi, John2026-02-052026-02-052026Ndlovu, H.S., Odindi, J., Sibanda, M. and Mutanga, O., 2026. Assessing neglected and underutilised taro crop water status using physiological indicators and UAV multi-modal thermal-multispectral data. Precision Agriculture, 27(1), p.15.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-025-10289-3https://hdl.handle.net/10566/21898Purpose: Taro (Colocasia esculenta (L)), a neglected and underutilized crop species (NUS), holds great potential as a future smart crop that can thrive under climate variability and change, hence sustaining food security. While taro exhibits tolerance to drought conditions, variations in physiological attributes such as leaf temperature that rises under water stress and the associated stomatal closure that is initiated to conserve water, compromise crop productivity and overall yield. Therefore, monitoring taro crop physiological indicators of water status allows for the implementation of timely interventions and targeted adaption strategies to mitigate the effects of water deficit on taro crop productivity. Methods: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), integrated with high-resolution thermal sensors, provide valuable platform for generating near-real-time spatially explicit information suitable for assessing taro crop water status physiological indicators at farm scale. Hence, this study sought to evaluate the utility of UAV multi-modal thermal remote sensing and deep neural network techniques to estimate the equivalent water thickness, fuel moisture content, stomatal conductance, canopy temperature, and the chlorophyll content of smallholder taro crops. Results: Findings showed that the multi-modal variable method achieves higher estimation accuracies in comparison to a single-modal technique, achieving R2 values greater than 0.91 and rRSME values less than 14.15% of equivalent water thickness, fuel moisture content, stomatal conductance, canopy temperature, and chlorophyll content. Additionally, the results illustrated that the thermal wavebands and derived thermal indices are the most influential variables in estimating stomatal conductance and leaf temperature, yielding R2 of 0.96 and 0.95, respectively. Conclusion: These research findings underscore the applicability of UAV-acquired thermal remote sensing in providing rapid and robust spatially explicit information on smallholder taro crop water status for ensuring crop productivity and developing early warning systems of water stress. These findings serve as a stepping stone towards advancing agricultural monitoring frameworks and integrating NUS, such as taro, into traditional farming.enCrop water statusNeglected and underutilised crop speciesPhysiological indicatorsTaroThermal remote sensingArticle