Table 6

The key predictors and timing of data acquisition (expressed in phenological time) in each year for the best-performing models identified from Tables 4 and 5. For the random forest regression (RFR), the first five predictors are shown, followed by their predictive power from the cross-validation in parentheses. For the stepwise multi-linear regression (S-MLR), the order reflects the stepwise progression, with the dominant predictor at each step given along with the number of times (out of 10) it was selected during cross-validation. Acronyms for vegetative indices (VIs) are the same as in Table 2.