In the present study, two potato experiments involving different N rates in 2011 were conducted in Wuchuan County and Linxi County, Inner Mongolia. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was collected by an active GreenSeeker crop canopy sensor to estimate N status of potato. The results show that the NDVI readings were poorly correlated with N nutrient indicators of potato at vegetative Growth stage due to the influence of soil background. With the advance of growth stages, NDVI values were exponentially related to plant N uptake（R2=0.665） before tuber bulking stage and were linearly related to plant N concentration（R2=0.699） when plant fully covered soil. In conclusion, GreenSeeker active crop sensor is a promising tool to estimate N status for potato plants. The findings from this study may be useful for developing N recommendation method based on active crop canopy sensor.