In this study, we developed a remote sensing approach, normally applied to management of crop irrigation, with the purpose of phenotyping a plant population in the field. The experiment was performed on 'Starkrimson' x 'Granny Smith' apple progeny (122 hybrids, 4 replicates) at adult stage, cultivated in field on Diaphen platform (INRA Montpellier, France). Airborne images acquisition in RGB and NIR bands permit to compute the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), while differences between tree canopy surface measured by thermal IR imaging (Ts) and air temperature (Ta) made it possible to calculate water stress indices. The Water Deficit Index (WDI), derived from the Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI), was considered for its applicability to discontinuous plant cover. WDI was computed on each individual tree, and focused on its central zone (60 cm diameter buffer). The first results showed significant genotypic effects and drought effects for indices during imposed summer water shortage, without interaction between them. Moreover, this first experiment permits to determine field measurements that are necessary to validate the method, linking image interpretation and tree water status variables.