An automatic method for estimating insect defoliation with visual highlights of consumed leaf tissue regions

As an essential component of the architecture of a plant, leaves are crucial to sustaining decision-making in cultivars and effectively support agricultural processes. When the leaf area is constantly monitored, a plant’s health and productive capacity can be assessed to foment proactive and reactiv...

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Main Authors: Gabriel S. Vieira, Afonso U. Fonseca, Naiane Maria de Sousa, Julio C. Ferreira, Juliana Paula Felix, Christian Dias Cabacinha, Fabrizzio Soares
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-03-01
Series:Information Processing in Agriculture
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214317324000192
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author Gabriel S. Vieira
Afonso U. Fonseca
Naiane Maria de Sousa
Julio C. Ferreira
Juliana Paula Felix
Christian Dias Cabacinha
Fabrizzio Soares
author_facet Gabriel S. Vieira
Afonso U. Fonseca
Naiane Maria de Sousa
Julio C. Ferreira
Juliana Paula Felix
Christian Dias Cabacinha
Fabrizzio Soares
author_sort Gabriel S. Vieira
collection DOAJ
description As an essential component of the architecture of a plant, leaves are crucial to sustaining decision-making in cultivars and effectively support agricultural processes. When the leaf area is constantly monitored, a plant’s health and productive capacity can be assessed to foment proactive and reactive strategies. Because of that, one of the most critical tasks in agricultural processes is estimating foliar damage. In this sense, we present an automatic method to estimate leaf stress caused by insect herbivory, including damage in border regions. As a novelty, we present a method with well-defined processing steps suitable for numerical analysis and visual inspection of defoliation severity. We describe the proposed method and evaluate its performance concerning 12 different plant species. Experimental results show high assertiveness in estimating leaf area loss with a concordance correlation coefficient of 0.98 for grape, soybean, potato, and strawberry leaves. A classic pattern recognition approach, named template matching, is at the core of the method whose performance is compared to cutting-edge techniques. Results demonstrated that the method achieves foliar damage quantification with precision comparable to deep learning models. The code prepared by the authors is publicly available.
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series Information Processing in Agriculture
spelling doaj-art-10d44b504cd048f2bc50f09fb18b3d722025-08-20T02:02:02ZengElsevierInformation Processing in Agriculture2214-31732025-03-01121405310.1016/j.inpa.2024.03.001An automatic method for estimating insect defoliation with visual highlights of consumed leaf tissue regionsGabriel S. Vieira0Afonso U. Fonseca1Naiane Maria de Sousa2Julio C. Ferreira3Juliana Paula Felix4Christian Dias Cabacinha5Fabrizzio Soares6Federal Institute Goiano, Computer Vision Laboratory, Urutaí GO, Brazil; Federal University of Goiás, Pixellab Laboratory, Goiânia GO, Brazil; Corresponding author at: Federal Institute Goiano, Computer Vision Laboratory, Urutaí GO, Brazil.Federal University of Goiás, Pixellab Laboratory, Goiânia GO, BrazilFederal University of Goiás, Pixellab Laboratory, Goiânia GO, BrazilFederal Institute Goiano, Computer Vision Laboratory, Urutaí GO, BrazilFederal University of Goiás, Pixellab Laboratory, Goiânia GO, BrazilFederal University of Minas Gerais/UFMG, Institute of Agrarian Science, Montes Claros MG, BrazilFederal University of Goiás, Pixellab Laboratory, Goiânia GO, BrazilAs an essential component of the architecture of a plant, leaves are crucial to sustaining decision-making in cultivars and effectively support agricultural processes. When the leaf area is constantly monitored, a plant’s health and productive capacity can be assessed to foment proactive and reactive strategies. Because of that, one of the most critical tasks in agricultural processes is estimating foliar damage. In this sense, we present an automatic method to estimate leaf stress caused by insect herbivory, including damage in border regions. As a novelty, we present a method with well-defined processing steps suitable for numerical analysis and visual inspection of defoliation severity. We describe the proposed method and evaluate its performance concerning 12 different plant species. Experimental results show high assertiveness in estimating leaf area loss with a concordance correlation coefficient of 0.98 for grape, soybean, potato, and strawberry leaves. A classic pattern recognition approach, named template matching, is at the core of the method whose performance is compared to cutting-edge techniques. Results demonstrated that the method achieves foliar damage quantification with precision comparable to deep learning models. The code prepared by the authors is publicly available.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214317324000192Leaf area measurementDefoliationInsect predatingSmart farmingPrecision agriculture
spellingShingle Gabriel S. Vieira
Afonso U. Fonseca
Naiane Maria de Sousa
Julio C. Ferreira
Juliana Paula Felix
Christian Dias Cabacinha
Fabrizzio Soares
An automatic method for estimating insect defoliation with visual highlights of consumed leaf tissue regions
Information Processing in Agriculture
Leaf area measurement
Defoliation
Insect predating
Smart farming
Precision agriculture
title An automatic method for estimating insect defoliation with visual highlights of consumed leaf tissue regions
title_full An automatic method for estimating insect defoliation with visual highlights of consumed leaf tissue regions
title_fullStr An automatic method for estimating insect defoliation with visual highlights of consumed leaf tissue regions
title_full_unstemmed An automatic method for estimating insect defoliation with visual highlights of consumed leaf tissue regions
title_short An automatic method for estimating insect defoliation with visual highlights of consumed leaf tissue regions
title_sort automatic method for estimating insect defoliation with visual highlights of consumed leaf tissue regions
topic Leaf area measurement
Defoliation
Insect predating
Smart farming
Precision agriculture
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214317324000192
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