Automatic detection of tulip breaking virus (TBV) in tulip fields using machine vision

• High resolution multispectral camera (RGB-NIR) used for segmentation.
• Plants segmented against the soil and disease pattern segmented against the plant.
• Performance of the system was similar to highly qualified crop experts.
• System can reduce use of insecticides needed to control spread of the disease by aphids.
• System can reduce pressure on labour for selecting diseased plants by the crop expert.

Tulip breaking virus (TBV) causes severe economic losses in flower bulbs in the Netherlands. To prevent further spread by aphids, the vector of the disease, infected plants must be removed from the field as soon as possible. Until now screening has been carried out by visual inspection in the field. As the availability of human experts is limited there is an urgent need for a rapid, automated and objective method of screening. Based on laboratory experiments, a vision method for use in open fields has been developed. In the period 2009–2012 field trials were carried out and the techniques were tested and improved. During the final evaluation of our system, in the last experiment (2012), the system approached the scores obtained by the experienced crop experts.

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