The vertical distribution of crop nitrogen is increased with plant height,timely and non-damaging measurement of crop nitrogen vertical distribution is critical for the crop production and quality,improving fertilizer utilization and reducing enviro nmental impact.The objective of this study was to discuss the method of estimating winter wheat nitrogen vertical distribution by exploring bidirectional reflectance distribution function(BRDF) data using partial least square(PLS) algorithm.The canopy reflectance at nadir,±50°and ±60°;at nadir,±30°and ±40°;and at nadir,±20°and ±30°were selected to estimate foliage nitrogen density(FND) at upper layer,middle layer and bottom layer,respectively.Three PLS analysis models with FND as the dependent variable and vegetation indices at corresponding angles as the explicative variables were established.The impact of soil reflectance and the canopy non-photosynthetic materials was minimized by seven kinds of modifying vegetation indices with the ratio R700/R670.The estimated accuracy is significant raised at upper layer,middle layer and bottom layer in modeling experiment.Independent model verification selected the best three vegetation indices for further research.The research result showed that the modified Green normalized difference vegetation index(GNDVI) shows better performance than other vegetation indices at each layer,which means modified GNDVI could be used in estimating winter wheat nitrogen vertical distribution