Active vs. Passive Thermal Imaging for Helping the Early Detection of Soil-Borne Rot Diseases on Wild Rocket [ Diplotaxis tenuifolia (L.) D.C.].

Abstract

Cultivation of wild rocket [ Diplotaxis tenuifolia (L.) D.C.] as a baby-leaf vegetable for the high-convenience food chain is constantly growing due to its nutritional and taste qualities. As is well known, these crops are particularly exposed to soil-borne fungal diseases and need to be effectively protected. At present, wild rocket disease management is performed by using permitted synthetic fungicides or through the application of agro-ecological and biological methods that must be optimized. In this regard, the implementation of innovative digital-based technologies, such as infrared thermography (IT), as supporting systems to decision-making processes is welcome. In this work, leaves belonging to wild rocket plants inoculated with the soil-borne pathogens Rhizoctonia solani Kühn and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary were analyzed and monitored by both active and passive thermographic methods and compared with visual detection. A comparison between the thermal analysis carried out in both medium (MWIR)- and long (LWIR)-wave infrared was made and discussed. The results achieved highlight how the monitoring based on the use of IT is promising for carrying out an early detection of the rot diseases induced by the investigated pathogens, allowing their detection in 3-6 days before the canopy is completely wilted. Active thermal imaging has the potential to detect early soil-borne rotting diseases.

Plant phenotyping relevance

野生ルッコラの感染植物を対象に、能動・受動熱画像法を比較し、熱画像による病害症状の早期検出性能を評価しており、植物状態の取得手法が中心である。

Code and data availability

The paper's supplementary materials (hosted publicly by MDPI) contain the paper-specific thermographic images of inoculated vs. control wild rocket leaves (Figures S1–S5) and the Right Prevision (RP%) calculation underlying the AT analysis. No separate phenotype dataset deposit or author analysis code repository is披露;