Monitoring of the copper persistence on plant leaves using pulsed thermography

Abstract

Abstract Copper-based fungicides are largely used in agriculture in the control of a wide range of plant diseases. Applied on plants, they remain deposited on leaf surfaces and are not absorbed into plant tissues. Because of accumulation problems and their ecotoxicological profiles in the soil, their use needs to be monitored and controlled, also by using modern technologies to better optimize the efficacy rendering minimum the amount of copper per season used. In this work, we test a novel approach based on pulsed thermography to evaluate the persistence of the copper on plant leaves so that the time between two applications should be the minimum needs. We monitored the thermal response observed on different treatments of both grapevine and tobacco plants over a 3-week period. Our experimental results demonstrate that the new methodological approach based on pulsed thermography can be an effective tool to evaluate in real time the presence of copper on differently treated plants allowing a tentative quantification and, therefore, to optimize its use in the agricultural practices, according also to the European Regulation n. 1107/2009.

Plant phenotyping relevance

植物葉面上の銅残留をパルスサーモグラフィーで評価・定量する新規手法が研究の中心であり、植物状態のセンサー計測法として該当する。

Code and data availability

The paper's pulsed-thermography TRt measurements, thermal image data, and the home-made MATLAB analysis code are not publicly deposited; the authors state data are available only upon reasonable request. The supplementary file is not described as containing datasets or code.

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