ABSTRACT
This chapter explores two formulations, and several different implementations, of a model intended to represent the interaction of solar radiation with a plant canopy. The first formulation represents an analytical solution for the special case in which the canopy consists of a single leaf-layer that completely covers the soil. The second formulation employs a numerical solution to the problems of handling multiple leaf-layers and multiple scattering. The chapter provides an exact analytical solution to the multiple scattering problem. It also explores a numerical solution to the light-interaction model, which can accommodate any number of leaf layers and take into account very high order multiple scattering within the canopy. The first returns to the two-layer case to demonstrate how the contribution of multiple scattering to the total canopy reflectance can be solved by analytical means; that is, by reformulating the model so that it is expressed concisely in terms of a set of mathematical functions and constants.
