Development of a handheld chlorophyll content detector on wheat and maize leaves based on RGB sensor
Chlorophyll-a (CL-a) and chlorophyll-b (CL-b) are major chlorophyll found in green plants. Determining the CL-a, CL-b, and total chlorophyll (TCL) contents is important to guide crop growth. However, the widely used portable chlorophyll detectors, such as SPAD-502, are limited to measuring relative...
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Plant Science |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2025.1606413/full |
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| author | Weidong Pan Heng Ma Rui Wang Hongrui Wang Dong Wang Wenchuan Guo Xiangkai Guo |
| author_facet | Weidong Pan Heng Ma Rui Wang Hongrui Wang Dong Wang Wenchuan Guo Xiangkai Guo |
| author_sort | Weidong Pan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Chlorophyll-a (CL-a) and chlorophyll-b (CL-b) are major chlorophyll found in green plants. Determining the CL-a, CL-b, and total chlorophyll (TCL) contents is important to guide crop growth. However, the widely used portable chlorophyll detectors, such as SPAD-502, are limited to measuring relative chlorophyll content and can't measure the contents of CL-a, CL-b, and TCL. It was reported that the chlorophyll content was related to the color indices of leaves, which inspired us to develop a portable detector that can non-destructively measure the contents of CL-a, CL-b, and TCL based on a color sensor. Therefore, the world's major crops, i.e., wheat and maize, are used as samples to develop a handheld chlorophyll content detector for leaves in this study. The detector was mainly composed of a microcontroller, RGB sensor, light source, and power management module, etc. The software, developed in Keil μVision5, was composed of a main function and several sub-functions, such as the leaf color collection sub-function, data processing sub-function, key sub-function, and display sub-function. The relationships of CL-a, CL-b, and TCL contents with the color features of wheat and maize leaves were analyzed. The results showed that these chlorophyll contents had high correlations with B (blue), B′ (blue light intensity), H (hue), S (saturation), and V (value) and can be expressed by five-variable equations. Compared with the chlorophyll contents measured by the traditional spectrophotometry method, the root-mean-square errors of the developed detector were 0.269 mg/g, 0.089 mg/g, and 0.350 mg/g for CL-a, CL-b, and TCL contents, respectively. The small size, light weight, and quick measurement (about 2 s) make the detector will be important for instructing crop breeding, fertilization, and other management. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-07a46cbc4725465b8bdedfbc31373765 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1664-462X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Plant Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-07a46cbc4725465b8bdedfbc313737652025-08-20T03:49:51ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Plant Science1664-462X2025-07-011610.3389/fpls.2025.16064131606413Development of a handheld chlorophyll content detector on wheat and maize leaves based on RGB sensorWeidong Pan0Heng Ma1Rui Wang2Hongrui Wang3Dong Wang4Wenchuan Guo5Xiangkai Guo6College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, Shaanxi, ChinaCollege of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, Shaanxi, ChinaCollege of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, Shaanxi, ChinaCollege of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, Shaanxi, ChinaCollege of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, Shaanxi, ChinaCollege of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, Shaanxi, ChinaXi'an Hanpule Science and Technology Co., Ltd., Xi'an, Shaanxi, ChinaChlorophyll-a (CL-a) and chlorophyll-b (CL-b) are major chlorophyll found in green plants. Determining the CL-a, CL-b, and total chlorophyll (TCL) contents is important to guide crop growth. However, the widely used portable chlorophyll detectors, such as SPAD-502, are limited to measuring relative chlorophyll content and can't measure the contents of CL-a, CL-b, and TCL. It was reported that the chlorophyll content was related to the color indices of leaves, which inspired us to develop a portable detector that can non-destructively measure the contents of CL-a, CL-b, and TCL based on a color sensor. Therefore, the world's major crops, i.e., wheat and maize, are used as samples to develop a handheld chlorophyll content detector for leaves in this study. The detector was mainly composed of a microcontroller, RGB sensor, light source, and power management module, etc. The software, developed in Keil μVision5, was composed of a main function and several sub-functions, such as the leaf color collection sub-function, data processing sub-function, key sub-function, and display sub-function. The relationships of CL-a, CL-b, and TCL contents with the color features of wheat and maize leaves were analyzed. The results showed that these chlorophyll contents had high correlations with B (blue), B′ (blue light intensity), H (hue), S (saturation), and V (value) and can be expressed by five-variable equations. Compared with the chlorophyll contents measured by the traditional spectrophotometry method, the root-mean-square errors of the developed detector were 0.269 mg/g, 0.089 mg/g, and 0.350 mg/g for CL-a, CL-b, and TCL contents, respectively. The small size, light weight, and quick measurement (about 2 s) make the detector will be important for instructing crop breeding, fertilization, and other management.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2025.1606413/fullchlorophyllchlorophyll-achlorophyll-bcolor indicescropdetector |
| spellingShingle | Weidong Pan Heng Ma Rui Wang Hongrui Wang Dong Wang Wenchuan Guo Xiangkai Guo Development of a handheld chlorophyll content detector on wheat and maize leaves based on RGB sensor Frontiers in Plant Science chlorophyll chlorophyll-a chlorophyll-b color indices crop detector |
| title | Development of a handheld chlorophyll content detector on wheat and maize leaves based on RGB sensor |
| title_full | Development of a handheld chlorophyll content detector on wheat and maize leaves based on RGB sensor |
| title_fullStr | Development of a handheld chlorophyll content detector on wheat and maize leaves based on RGB sensor |
| title_full_unstemmed | Development of a handheld chlorophyll content detector on wheat and maize leaves based on RGB sensor |
| title_short | Development of a handheld chlorophyll content detector on wheat and maize leaves based on RGB sensor |
| title_sort | development of a handheld chlorophyll content detector on wheat and maize leaves based on rgb sensor |
| topic | chlorophyll chlorophyll-a chlorophyll-b color indices crop detector |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2025.1606413/full |
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