Optical Caliper for Contactless Measurement of Plant Stem Diameter

Abstract

Precision greenhouse agriculture enhances plant health and crop yields by continuously monitoring key plant parameters. Stem diameter is such a parameter and is monitored to support decisions on plant care. However, traditional contact-based methods induce thigmomorphogenic effects that impact plant growth. Here, we introduce the Optical Caliper (OC), a novel contactless device for precise, non-invasive stem diameter measurement. The OC operates by projecting a collimated light beam to cast a shadow of the stem onto a high-resolution image sensor. The shadow size is a measure for the stem diameter. Controlled laboratory tests show the OC offers an accuracy comparable to that of a Digital Caliper (DC). Field trials on irregular tomato and cucumber stems demonstrate a repeatability of 0.1-0.2 mm. The OC's non-invasive design and high repeatability exceed the performance of a DC, making it particularly suited for accurately monitoring soft, variable plant structures. Bringing the advantage of avoiding thigmomophogenic effects and thus optimizing crop yield, the OC is a promising tool for high-throughput plant phenotyping and precision agriculture applications.

Plant phenotyping relevance

植物の茎径を非接触・高精度に測定する光学デバイスを開発し、実験室および圃場で精度・再現性を検証しており、植物表現型取得法が研究の中心です。

Code and data availability

The paper's measurement data (optical caliper, digital caliper, and micrometer readings on reference cylinders and tomato/cucumber stems) is openly deposited on the SURF data repository of The Hague University of Applied Sciences. No author analysis code or trained models are explicitly deposited; other allowed URLs (D