Innovative Solutions for Agriculture: Sensor-Driven Soil Parameter Monitoring and Deep Learning in Potato Disease Detection

The primary obstacle facing modern agriculture is the lack of advanced technologies capable of efficiently and proactively identifying crop diseases, a gap that is most noticeable while the crop is at the key stem stage. Taking note of this difficulty, the suggested solution calls for the deliberate insertion of cutting-edge sensors at the root level straight into the soil. The objective of this integration is to offer a comprehensive and in-depth evaluation of crucial factors that are necessary for plant health, including temperature dynamics, moisture content, and nutrient levels of soil. While the temperature sensors serve a dual purpose by monitoring the external environment and evaluating the condition of mechanical assets vital to agricultural operations, the soil moisture and index sensors are essential for precisely determining irrigation needs and assessing soil nutrient levels. The project incorporates a cutting-edge Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) deep learning algorithm designed especially for the identification of potato leaf diseases, which represents a significant improvement to disease detection capabilities. This sophisticated algorithm improves the accuracy and efficiency of disease identification by using deep learning to analyze and comprehend complex patterns found in the leaf of the plant. This comprehensive initiative's main goal is to create a seamlessly integrated sensor system that can monitor crop health dynamically, provide real-time insights into critical soil characteristics, and use state-of-the-art CNN deep learning technology to detect potato leaf diseases in the agricultural landscape with extreme precision

Double trouble: Co-infection of potato with the causal agents of late and early blight

Global potato production is plagued by multiple pathogens, amongst which are Phytophthora infestans and Alternaria solani, the causal agents of potato late blight and early blight, respectively. Both these pathogens have different lifestyles and are successful pathogens of potato, but despite observations of both pathogens infecting potato simultaneously in field conditions, the tripartite interactions between potato and these two pathogens are so far poorly understood. Here we studied the interaction of A. solani and P. infestans first in vitro and subsequently in planta both in laboratory and field settings. We found that A. solani can inhibit P. infestans in terms of growth in vitro and also infection of potato in both laboratory experiments and in an agriculturally relevant field setting. A. solani had a direct inhibitory effect on P. infestans in vitro and compounds secreted by A. solani had both an inhibitory and disruptive effect on sporangia and mycelium of P. infestans in vitro. In planta infection bioassays revealed that simultaneous co-inoculation of both pathogens resulted in larger necrotic lesions than single inoculations; however, consecutive inoculations only resulted in larger lesions when A. solani was inoculated after P. infestans. These results indicate that the order in which these pathogens attempt to colonize potato is important for the disease outcome and that the influence of plant pathogens on each other should be accounted for in the design of future disease control strategies in crops such as potato

Drones in Vegetable Crops: A Systematic Literature Review

In the context of increasing global population and climate change, modern agriculture must enhance production efficiency. Vegetables production is crucial for human nutrition and has a significant environmental impact. To address this challenge, the agricultural sector needs to modernize and utilize advanced technologies such as drones to increase productivity, improve quality, and reduce resource consumption. These devices, known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), with their agility and versatility play a crucial role in monitoring and spraying operations. They significantly contribute to enhancing the efficacy of precision farming. The aim of this review is to examine the critical role of drones as innovative tools to enhance management and yield of vegetable crops cultivation. This review was carried out using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) framework and involved the analysis of a wide range of research published from 2018 to 2023. According to the phases of Identification, Screening, and Eligibility, 132 papers were selected and analysed. These papers were categorized based on the types of drone applications in vegetable crop production, providing an overview of how these tools fit into the field of Precision Farming. Technological developments of these tools and data processing methods were then explored, examining the contributions of Machine and Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence. Final considerations were presented regarding practical implementation and future technical and scientific challenges to fully harness the potential of drones in precision agriculture and vegetable crop production. The review pointed out the significance of drone applications in vegetable crops and the immense potential of these tools in enhancing cultivation efficiency. Drone utilization enables the reduction of input quantities such as herbicides, fertilizers, pesticides, and water but also the prevention of damages through early diagnosis of various stress types. These input savings can yield environmental benefits, positioning these technologies as potential solutions for the environmental sustainability of vegetable crops

Optimized Matrix Feature Analysis – Convolutional Neural Network (OMFA-CNN) Model for Potato Leaf Diseases Detection System

One of the most often grown crops is the potato. As a main food, potatoes are prioritised for cultivation worldwide. Because potatoes are such a rich source of vitamins and minerals, we can create a robust system for food security. However, a number of illnesses delay the growth of agriculture and harm potato output. Consequently, early disease identification can offer a better answer for effective crop production. In this research work aim is to classify and detect the potato leave (PL) diseases using OMFA-CNN deep learning model. An optimized matrix feature analysis-CNN deep learning model for PL disease detection is implemented. In the first phase, the PLs features are extracted from the potato leave images using K-means clustering image segmentation method. At the last phase, a new OMFA-CNN model are proposed using CNN to classify virus, and bacterial diseases of PLs, The PL disease dataset consists 2351 images gathered in real-time and from the Kaggle (PlantVillage) dataset. The implemented OMFA-CNN model attained 99.3 % precision and 99 % recall on potato disease detection. The implemented method is also compared with MASK RCNN,SVM and other models and attained significantly high precision and recall

Functional Hyperspectral Imaging by High-Related Vegetation Indices to Track the Wide-Spectrum Trichoderma Biocontrol Activity Against Soil-Borne Diseases of Baby-Leaf Vegetables

Research has been increasingly focusing on the selection of novel and effective biological control agents (BCAs) against soil-borne plant pathogens. The large-scale application of BCAs requires fast and robust screening methods for the evaluation of the efficacy of high numbers of candidates. In this context, the digital technologies can be applied not only for early disease detection but also for rapid performance analyses of BCAs. The present study investigates the ability of different Trichoderma spp. to contain the development of main baby-leaf vegetable pathogens and applies functional plant imaging to select the best performing antagonists against multiple pathosystems. Specifically, sixteen different Trichoderma spp. strains were characterized both in vivo and in vitro for their ability to contain R. solani, S. sclerotiorum and S. rolfsii development. All Trichoderma spp. showed, in vitro significant radial growth inhibition of the target phytopathogens. Furthermore, biocontrol trials were performed on wild rocket, green and red baby lettuces infected, respectively, with R. solani, S. sclerotiorum and S. rolfsii. The plant status was monitored by using hyperspectral imaging. Two strains, Tl35 and Ta56, belonging to T. longibrachiatum and T. atroviride species, significantly reduced disease incidence and severity (DI and DSI) in the three pathosystems. Vegetation indices, calculated on the hyperspectral data extracted from the images of plant-Trichoderma-pathogen interaction, proved to be suitable to refer about the plant health status. Four of them (OSAVI, SAVI, TSAVI and TVI) were found informative for all the pathosystems analyzed, resulting closely correlated to DSI according to significant changes in the spectral signatures among health, infected and bio-protected plants. Findings clearly indicate the possibility to promote sustainable disease management of crops by applying digital plant imaging as large-scale screening method of BCAs' effectiveness and precision biological control support

Cross-domain transfer learning for weed segmentation and mapping in precision farming using ground and UAV images

Weed and crop segmentation is becoming an increasingly integral part of precision farming that leverages the current computer vision and deep learning technologies. Research has been extensively carried out based on images captured with a camera from various platforms. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and ground-based vehicles including agricultural robots are the two popular platforms for data collection in fields. They all contribute to site-specific weed management (SSWM) to maintain crop yield. Currently, the data from these two platforms is processed separately, though sharing the same semantic objects (weed and crop). In our paper, we have proposed a novel method with a new deep learning-based model and the enhanced data augmentation pipeline to train field images alone and subsequently predict both field images and UAV images for weed segmentation and mapping. The network learning process is visualized by feature maps at shallow and deep layers. The results show that the mean intersection of union (IOU) values of the segmentation for the crop (maize), weeds, and soil background in the developed model for the field dataset are 0.744, 0.577, 0.979, respectively, and the performance of aerial images from an UAV with the same model, the IOU values of the segmentation for the crop (maize), weeds and soil background are 0.596, 0.407, and 0.875, respectively. To estimate the effect on the use of plant protection agents, we quantify the relationship between herbicide spraying saving rate and grid size (spraying resolution) based on the predicted weed map. The spraying saving rate is up to 90 % when the spraying resolution is at 1.78 × 1.78 cm2 . The study shows that the developed deep convolutional neural network could be used to classify weeds from both field and aerial images and delivers satisfactory results. To achieve this performance, it is crucial to perform preprocessing techniques that reduce dataset differences between two distinct domains

Precision Agriculture Digital Technologies for Sustainable Fungal Disease Management of Ornamental Plants

Ornamental plant production constitutes an important sector of the horticultural industry worldwide and fungal infections, that dramatically affect the aesthetic quality of plants, can cause serious economic and crop losses. The need to reduce the use of pesticides for controlling fungal outbreaks requires the development of new sustainable strategies for pathogen control. In particular, early and accurate large-scale detection of occurring symptoms is critical to face the ambitious challenge of an effective, energy-saving, and precise disease management. Here, the new trends in digital-based detection and available tools to treat fungal infections are presented in comparison with conventional practices. Recent advances in molecular biology tools, spectroscopic and imaging technologies and fungal risk models based on microclimate trends are examined. The revised spectroscopic and imaging technologies were tested through a case study on rose plants showing important fungal diseases (i.e., spot spectroscopy, hyperspectral, multispectral, and thermal imaging, fluorescence sensors). The final aim was the examination of conventional practices and current e-tools to gain the early detection of plant diseases, the identification of timing and spacing for their proper management, reduction in crop losses through environmentally friendly and sustainable production systems. Moreover, future perspectives for enhancing the integration of all these approaches are discussed

Comparative Evaluation of the LAMP Assay and PCR-Based Assays for the Rapid Detection of Alternaria solani

Early blight (EB), caused by the pathogen Alternaria solani, is a major threat to global potato and tomato production. Early and accurate diagnosis of this disease is therefore important. In this study, we conducted a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay, as well as conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR), nested PCR, and quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) assays to determine which of these techniques was less time consuming, more sensitive, and more accurate. We based our assays on sequence-characterized amplified regions of the histidine kinase gene with an accession number (FJ424058). The LAMP assay provided more rapid and accurate results, amplifying the target pathogen in less than 60 min at 63°C, with 10-fold greater sensitivity than conventional PCR. Nested PCR was 100-fold more sensitive than the LAMP assay and 1000-fold more sensitive than conventional PCR. qPCR was the most sensitive among the assays evaluated, being 10-fold more sensitive than nested PCR for the least detectable genomic DNA concentration (100 fg). The LAMP assay was more sensitive than conventional PCR, but less sensitive than nested PCR and qPCR; however, it was simpler and faster than the other assays evaluated. Despite of the sensitivity, LAMP assay provided higher specificity than qPCR. The LAMP assay amplified A. solani artificially, allowing us to detect naturally infect young potato leaves, which produced early symptoms of EB. The LAMP assay also achieved positive amplification using diluted pure A. solani culture instead of genomic DNA. Hence, this technique has greater potential for developing quick and sensitive visual detection methods than do other conventional PCR strategies for detecting A. solani in infected plants and culture, permitting early prediction of disease and reducing the risk of epidemics