Automated image processing to support the analysis of between-year transmission of Leptosphaeria maculans in field conditions

Abstract

Understanding the transmission of inoculum between periods where the host plants are present is central for predicting the development of plant diseases and optimising mitigation strategies. However, the production at the end of the growing period, the survival during the intercrop period, and the emergence or emission of inoculum after sowing or planting can be highly variable, difficult to assess and generally inferred indirectly from symptoms data. As a result, there is a lack of large data sets which is a major brake for the study of these epidemiological processes. Here we focus on Leptosphaeria maculans that causes the black leg of oilseed rape. After having infected leaves, at early stages of the plant, and migrating into the stem, it causes a basal stem canker before harvest. It then survives on stubble left in the field from which ascospores are emitted at the beginning of the next growing period. In this study we first developed an image processing framework to estimate the density of fruiting bodies produced on stubble. Then, we used this framework to analyse automatically a large number of stems collected in oilseed rape fields among a cultivated area. Having performed a quality assessment of the processing chain we used the output data to investigate how the potential level of inoculum may change with the source field, the considered year and the stem canker severity at harvest. Besides the insights gain into the blackleg of oilseed rape, this work shows how image-based phenotyping may support epidemiological studies by increasing substantially the precision of high throughput disease data.

Plant phenotyping relevance

油糧ナタネ茎上の子実体密度という植物病害状態を画像処理で推定する枠組みを開発し、品質評価と大規模データへの適用を行っており、表現型取得法が中心です。

Code and data availability

The paper describes an image-processing framework for quantifying pseudothecia on oilseed rape stubble, with annotated ground-truth images and analysis code, but no public deposit, URL, or repository is given. The only availability statement is 'Source code is available upon request,' so assets are paper-specific but仅可

No evidence-backed public reproduction asset is currently recorded.