Plant phenotyping methods.

HybOptic-CNN: A hybrid WOA-GWO-optimized convolutional neural network model for enhanced plant disease detection in the Nigerian environment →

Plant diseases threaten agricultural productivity, and automated image analysis can support early identification of visible disease symptoms. This study introduces HybOptic-CNN, a convolutional neural network (CNN) whose learning rate and batch size are selected using a hybrid Whale Optimization Algorithm--Grey Wolf Optimizer (WOA-GWO). Nine disease classes were selected from the 22-class CCMT field-image dataset, and 152 local farm leaf images were collected in Enugu State, Nigeria. Of the local images, 122 (80.3%) were added to the model-development data for training and validation, whereas 30 (19.7%) formed an independent Nigerian hold-out set excluded from augmentation, class balancing, early stopping, validation, and hyperparameter selection. Across 10 model-development runs, the optimized model achieved 96.8 ± 0.4% mean validation accuracy, 95.2 ± 0.5% macro-precision, 94.9 ± 0.6% macro-recall, and 95.0 ± 0.5% macro-F1, compared with 90.3 ± 0.9% validation accuracy and 86.3 ± 1.2% macro-F1 for the baseline. The optimized model improved mean validation accuracy by 6.5 percentage points and converged 14.6 epochs earlier. On the independent 30-image Nigerian hold-out, HybOptic-CNN achieved 93.3% accuracy and 93.1% macro-F1 across four represented disease classes. A web application integrating the trained classifier was also demonstrated. These results support improved model-development performance through hybrid hyperparameter selection and motivate broader multi-location field evaluation.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物の可視病徴を画像から分類するCNN手法を開発・検証しており、病害状態のフェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractautomated image analysis can support early identification of visible disease symptoms

A simple and accurate method for inferring missing ploidy information from sequence data →

Polyploidy can be a critical factor for explaining plant trait variation, niche diversification, or speciation. However, inferring ploidy from silica-dried or historical samples using chromosome counts or flow cytometry is not possible, and scaling up ploidy estimation to population-level fresh contemporary samples can be challenging as well. Thus, we present a new method for estimating ploidy levels directly from sequencing data using machine learning; the Polyploid Population Genomics Tool Kit (PPGTK). The machine-learning approach is advantageous as it relaxes the assumptions of previous probabilistic methods and provides per-sample probabilities, allowing investigators to evaluate uncertainty in their system of interest.. We demonstrate performance and accuracy of the method on simulated and empirical data. Simulations showed above 99% accuracy, even for low coverage data, as long reads were mappable to the reference genome. For empirical analyses, we used target enrichment data from blueberry wild relatives (Vaccinium sect. Cyanococcus) and whole-genome data from sweetpotato wild relatives (Ipomoea ser. Batatas). Ploidy was recovered with 99% accuracy across 70 Vaccinium individuals and 97% across 82 Ipomoea individuals. Analysis of many individuals is fast and requires only a multisample VCF, which is presumably generated for the research anyway, and some samples of known ploidy for training the classifier. The approach implemented in PPGTK is promising for collections-based research as well, enabling ploidy classification of historical specimens based on present-day observations. The method is implemented in a new Python package as a single command that can run on a conventional laptop.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物の倍数性という状態をシーケンスデータから推定する機械学習手法を開発し、シミュレーションおよび実データで精度検証している。Pythonパッケージとして実装され、手法自体が中心である。

abstractwe present a new method for estimating ploidy levels directly from sequencing data using machine learning; the Polyploid Population Genomics Tool Kit (PPGTK).

PAT: An Image Analysis Tool for Automated Scoring of Pollen in Alexander-Stained Anthers. →

Quantitative pollen viability analysis is a critical but labor-intensive step in plant reproductive biology. Existing deep-learning Segment Anything Models (SAM) fail to reliably segment viable pollen in Alexander-stained anthers. To address this, we fine-tuned an existing Cellpose-SAM model for pollen segmentation. We integrated it into PAT (Pollen Analysis Tool), a cross-platform desktop application. PAT features instance segmentation with interactive quality control, an in-app model retraining module, and publication-ready statistical outputs. We deployed PAT in an EMS suppressor screen of semi-sterile Arabidopsis smg7-6 mutants, enabling efficient candidate prioritization for whole-genome sequencing and mapping of the candidate mutation. This screen led to the identification of a point mutation in CAP-D2 (capd2-2), a Condensin I subunit, that rescues the smg7-6 meiotic phenotype. Notably, mutation in a Condensin II subunits (CAP-D3 and CAP-H2) does not confer rescue. Further characterization suggests the capd2-2 allele is hypomorphic, showing no defects in vegetative growth, chromocenter compaction, or transposable element silencing. Collectively, we demonstrate that accessible AI tools have the potential to bridge gaps in plant phenotyping and accelerate the pace of biological discovery.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods花粉生存性を画像から自動推定するセグメンテーション手法とソフトウェアPATの開発が研究の中心であり、植物表現型計測ツールとして明確に該当する。

titlePAT: An Image Analysis Tool for Automated Scoring of Pollen in Alexander-Stained Anthers

BioIMA: a one-click desktop tool for standardized extraction of phenotypic traits from biological images →

Standardized extraction of quantitative phenotypes from images is increasingly important across plant biology, from ecological and evolutionary studies to genetics, breeding, and functional genomics. However, as large image datasets are increasingly used for trait analysis, many biologically relevant traits, including size, shape, color, and spatial patterning, are still measured manually or using fragmented semi-automated workflows. These limitations reduce throughput, reproducibility, and accessibility, especially for researchers without computational expertise. Here, we present BioIMA, an open-source desktop tool for rapid and standardized phenotyping from biological images. BioIMA integrates foundation model-based segmentation with automated trait computation, allowing users to extract quantitative measurements from images through an intuitive graphical interface and without model training. To validate its performance, we quantified a set of knot morphological traits in two Populus species, as these measurements are typically time-consuming to perform manually. Automatic measurements showed strong agreement with manual ImageJ-based measurements (R2 > 0.95), while reducing per-image processing time by approximately 75% (from ~15 s to ~4 s). BioIMA was further applied to diverse plant datasets, including Helianthus and Rhododendron images with varying morphologies and background conditions. Although developed for plant phenotyping, BioIMA may also be extended to other biological samples where region-based size, shape, or color traits are of interest. By combining accessibility and standardization in a lightweight local application, BioIMA provides a practical community resource for image-based phenotyping in ecological and evolutionary studies.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物画像から形態形質を自動抽出するツールの開発と、手動測定との性能検証が中心であるため。

abstractHere, we present BioIMA, an open-source desktop tool for rapid and standardized phenotyping from biological images.

A lightweight RPB-YOLO11-based detector improves mobile phenotyping of rice panicle blast →

Rice panicle blast detection is an important task in plant disease phenotyping. Field-based detection remains challenging because infected spike regions are often small, sparse, elongated, and affected by overlapping panicles, complex backgrounds, and variable illumination. In this study, we propose RPB-YOLO11, a lightweight YOLO11-based detector designed for rice panicle blast detection. The model uses a Lightweight Ghost Backbone (LGB) to reduce redundant computation. It uses Anisotropic Axial Stripe Attention (A2SA) to represent elongated panicle structures. It also uses Focal Multi-Scale Attention (FMSA) for multi-scale feature refinement and Adaptive Geometric Shape IoU (AGS-IoU) for geometry-aware localization. The model was trained and evaluated on a rice panicle image dataset containing 1,055 training images, 69 validation images, and 169 test images. On the test set, RPB-YOLO11 achieved 76.09% mAP50, 45.44% mAP50-95, 73.98% precision, and 72.75% recall with 6.21 GFLOPs. Compared with the YOLO11n baseline, it improved mAP50, mAP50-95, precision, and recall by 2.73, 2.12, 1.64, and 2.11 percentage points, respectively. An Android-oriented inference application supports local image inference, detection visualization, class counting, and diseased-panicle incidence estimation. These results suggest that RPB-YOLO11 provides a practical approach for image-based rice panicle blast survey.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsイネ穂いもちの画像検出モデルを開発・比較検証し、罹病穂率を推定する実用アプリまで構築しており、植物病害状態の画像ベース表現型取得が中心である。

abstractIn this study, we propose RPB-YOLO11, a lightweight YOLO11-based detector designed for rice panicle blast detection.

Improving pear fruit quality without yield loss through 3D point cloud-based estimation of reasonable fruit load →

Fruit quality is a critical determinant of economic returns in pear production, and maintaining an appropriate fruit load (FL) is essential for achieving high yield and quality. As a direct indicator of canopy photosynthetic capacity and assimilate supply, leaf number constitutes the key biological basis of reasonable FL determination under the leaf-to-fruit ratio concept. However, accurate and efficient estimation of leaf number in mature pear trees remains technically challenging, limiting its practical use in precision FL regulation. Here, we propose a data-driven framework for leaf number and reasonable FL estimation by integrating 3D point cloud-derived canopy structure with machine learning. A pipeline for extracting 3D architectural traits was developed and implemented in the software tool FTPCT, enabling rapid and standardized trait acquisition. Through correlation analysis, multicollinearity diagnosis, and variance inflation factor screening, five key traits strongly associated with leaf number were identified and incorporated into five machine learning models optimized using Bayesian optimization. Among them, the optimized random forest regression model achieved the highest and most stable performance, with R 2 of 0.85, RMSE of 239.74, and MAE of 149.26 for test dataset. SHAP analysis identified tree crown volume as the dominant contributor to leaf number estimation. Field validation demonstrated that FL regulation guided by the proposed framework significantly improved fruit weight and size without reducing yield compared with conventional practices. Notably, the proposed approach avoids explicit leaf-level reconstruction and relies on less canopy-scale traits, substantially reducing data requirements and computational cost, and thereby offering strong potential for rapid, field-deployable FL regulation in large-scale orchards.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods3D点群から樹冠構造形質を抽出し、葉数と適正着果量を推定する手法およびソフトウェアを開発・検証しており、植物表現型取得が中心である。

abstractA pipeline for extracting 3D architectural traits was developed and implemented in the software tool FTPCT, enabling rapid and standardized trait acquisition.

PhenoIntel: A Lifecycle-Aligned Multi-Agent Web Application for Verified, Accessible Plant Phenotype Analysis →

Existing conversational plant-phenotyping platforms are difficult for plant scientists to use and lack the reliability scientific research demands: failed analyses are reported as valid measurements rather than flagged as missing, statistical tests run without checking assumptions, predictions carry no uncertainty estimate, and specialised hardware limits accessibility. We present PhenoIntel, a lifecycle-aligned multi-agent web platform that turns the full machine-learning workflow into a reliable, user-friendly phenotyping system. Nine specialised agents divide the analysis into stages, from image collection through model selection, inference, and reporting, rather than handing the whole task to one AI manager. Independent checks separate these stages, and every agent reads from and writes to one shared, fixed-structure record, so an inconsistent output from one stage is caught before it reaches the next. Uncertainty is matched to each model family, conformal prediction, detection-confidence spread, or Monte Carlo Dropout, rather than applied uniformly, and quality thresholds adapt to crop and task instead of one global cutoff. When no suitable model exists, PhenoIntel can propose, validate, and integrate a new one on its own. The model repository spans ten trained models across five crops and four imaging modalities. Classification models reach Macro F1 of 0.78-0.996; object-detection models reach 0.96 mAP@50 with a 54% reduction in counting error over an unoptimised baseline; and a temporal model reaches held-out Macro F1 of 0.7050. PhenoIntel runs in a browser on standard hardware, requiring no GPU, and a 1,200-test automated suite confirms complete pipeline execution. Every result carries calibrated uncertainty, validated statistics, and FAIR-compliant provenance, a combination existing conversational phenotyping tools do not offer.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物フェノタイピングの画像収集から推論・報告までを扱うウェブプラットフォームを開発し、複数モデル、精度、不確実性、検証スイートを評価しており、方法が研究の中心である。

abstractWe present PhenoIntel, a lifecycle-aligned multi-agent web platform that turns the full machine-learning workflow into a reliable, user-friendly phenotyping system.

Introducing entropy-based metrics for quantifying edge- and macro-shape complexity in leaves and beyond →

ABSTRACT Leaf shape is a fundamental trait of plant ecological strategies, influencing biotic interactions and ecosystem functioning. However, established quantitative metrics fail to capture subtle variations and irregularities, require user-based reference points or are challenging to compare among taxa with broadly different leaf shapes. In addition, established metrics typically conflate (aggregate) leaf edge complexity and macro-shape complexity, despite their independent functional significance and genetic foundations. Here, we introduce an entropy-based framework to quantify two new complexity metrics: edge complexity and macro-shape complexity. Based on three case studies, we show that these metrics outperform aggregate metrics in predicting Quercus robur chemical traits, provide more intuitive interspecific classifications, and strongly align with human perception. In addition, edge and macro-shape complexity show high complementarity, while aggregate metrics are highly redundant and typically strongly related to leaf area. Emerging as the strongest predictor of leaf chemistry and key visual cue for complexity as perceived by humans, the effects of edge complexity highlight the under-appreciated functional significance of leaf margins. Our framework and the proposed entropy-based complexity metrics thus promise to help unlock the potential of growing digital image archives of leaves, including images from herbaria and fossils, and are technically readily applicable to shapes of algae, bacteria, pollen, and beyond. The accompanying package ShapeComplexity enables the broad application of entropy-based metrics, providing a powerful tool to explore how the shape of organisms and biological structures influences ecological strategies, biotic interactions, and ecosystem functioning while tracking spatial and temporal variation.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉の画像からエッジ複雑性とマクロ形状複雑性を定量化する新規指標とソフトウェアを開発しており、植物形質抽出法が研究の中心である。

abstractHere, we introduce an entropy-based framework to quantify two new complexity metrics: edge complexity and macro-shape complexity.

A MATLAB-Based Image Processing Protocol for Quantitative Differentiation of Diseased and Healthy Plant Tissue From Digital Leaf Images. →

Accurate quantification of plant disease severity is essential for evaluating host-pathogen interactions and assessing the effectiveness of disease management strategies. Traditional visual scoring methods and manual estimation of infected tissue are widely used but are often subjective and prone to observer bias. Digital image analysis offers an objective alternative by enabling automated identification and quantification of symptomatic plant tissues based on color and spatial characteristics. Here, we present a MATLAB-based image processing protocol for differentiating diseased and healthy plant tissue from digital leaf images. The workflow involves acquisition of standardized leaf images, conversion of RGB images into hue-saturation-value (HSV) color space, segmentation of diseased tissue using defined HSV thresholds, refinement of the segmented mask through morphological operations, and extraction of the whole leaf area. The protocol then calculates the diseased area and total leaf area in pixels and computes the percentage of infected tissue. The method uses MATLAB together with the Image Processing Toolbox and can be implemented using simple scripts. This protocol enables rapid and reproducible quantification of disease severity in plant leaves exhibiting visually distinct symptoms such as necrotic lesions or blight patches. By minimizing observer bias and providing quantitative measurements of infected area, the protocol offers a practical and reproducible approach for plant disease phenotyping and evaluation of disease management strategies across diverse plant-pathogen systems where diseased tissues can be clearly distinguished from healthy tissues under reasonably controlled imaging conditions. Key features • A reproducible MATLAB-based workflow for separating diseased and healthy plant tissue using color-space segmentation. • Applicable to plant diseases where symptomatic tissue contrasts clearly with healthy tissue (necrosis, blight lesions, rot patches). • Requires digital leaf images, MATLAB, and the MATLAB Image Processing Toolbox for image processing and disease quantification. • Enables rapid calculation of diseased leaf area and disease severity using automated pixel-based quantification.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物病斑を画像から分割・定量し、感染面積と病害重症度を算出するMATLAB画像解析プロトコルが研究の中心であり、植物病害表現型の取得・抽出手法に該当する。

abstractHere, we present a MATLAB-based image processing protocol for differentiating diseased and healthy plant tissue from digital leaf images.

Automated Segmentation and Quantitative Analysis of Cotton Fiber Cross Sections Using a Deep Learning-Based Workflow →

Abstract Cross-sectional analysis is considered the reference method for measuring cotton fiber fineness and maturity; however, its widespread use has been limited by labor-intensive sample preparation and manual image analysis. The objective of this study was to develop and validate a reproducible deep-learning-based workflow for automated segmentation and quantitative analysis of cotton fiber cross-sections. A total of 249 composite light microscopy images of cotton fiber cross-sections were collected and manually annotated to generate training and validation datasets. A YOLO11m instance segmentation model was developed to identify cotton fiber and lumen regions and automatically extract quantitative traits, including fiber area, lumen area, fiber perimeter, and lumen perimeter. The workflow integrates automated image segmentation, post-processing, quantitative trait extraction, and data export to facilitate reproducible cotton fiber phenotyping. Model performance was evaluated using mean Average Precision (mAP), and workflow outputs were validated against Adobe Photoshop using descriptive comparisons of six cross-sectional traits. The model achieved Box mAP50 scores of 0.984 for cotton fiber regions and 0.789 for lumen regions, demonstrating high segmentation accuracy. The automated workflow substantially reduced manual analysis time while producing measurements with central tendencies comparable to those obtained using Adobe Photoshop. To facilitate reproducibility and adoption, the workflow, trained model weights, and supporting documentation are publicly available through GitHub and a Hugging Face web application. The workflow substantially increases analytical throughput while providing a reproducible and publicly accessible method for automated cotton fiber cross-sectional phenotyping, facilitating quantitative analysis for cotton genetics and breeding research.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods綿繊維横断面の画像分割、形質抽出、検証を目的とした再現可能な深層学習ワークフローの開発であり、植物フェノタイピング手法が研究の中心である。

abstractThe objective of this study was to develop and validate a reproducible deep-learning-based workflow for automated segmentation and quantitative analysis of cotton fiber cross-sections.

ZCAT: Zero-shot cross-crop annotation transfer-A new paradigm leveraging plant organ similarity. →

The inflorescence is a key yield-determining organ, yet its complex morphology makes manual pixel-level annotation time-consuming, leading to a scarcity of high-quality segmentation datasets. To address this bottleneck, we propose ZCAT (Zero-shot Cross-crop Annotation Transfer), a novel paradigm for zero-annotation cross-crop pseudo-mask screening. ZCAT completely eliminates pixel-level manual annotation of the target crop, requiring only holistic quality assessment of model-generated pseudo-masks (5-10 s per image). Specifically, we train a SegFormer model on public rice panicle datasets (CVRP and RiceSEG) and transfer it across crops to the wheat spike segmentation task. The key innovation is the introduction of a human-defined quality function Q, which circumvents the fundamental challenge in self-learning algorithms: the inability of computers to autonomously distinguish good masks from bad ones. Through iterative human-in-the-loop pseudo-label screening with a curriculum learning strategy, each round adds only a few high-quality pseudo-masks to the training set, continuously improving model performance. After four iterations, ZCAT produces pseudo-masks with an average Spike IoU of 0.7003, evaluated against the GWFSS manual annotations as ground truth. Moreover, the pseudo-mask dataset exhibited higher benchmark performance than the GWFSS manual annotations (Spike IoU 0.7612 vs. 0.7027; mIoU 0.8627 vs. 0.8247), suggesting stronger self-consistency. A generalization test on a strictly held-out set of 100 manually annotated wheat spike images showed that the model trained on ZCAT-generated pseudo-masks achieved marginally better performance than that trained on the GWFSS manual annotations (Spike IoU: 0.5112 vs. 0.4927; mIoU: 0.5627 vs. 0.5247). The time budget of the ZCAT pipeline was substantially lower than that of manual annotation. ZCAT opens a new pathway for rapid annotation of plant reproductive structures or other organs and significantly reduces data preparation costs in plant phenomics. The generated wheat spike pseudo-mask dataset and the mask quality screening tool (Mask Quality Screener) are open-sourced.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物器官セグメンテーションのためのゼロショット転移、擬似マスク品質評価、反復学習パイプラインを開発・検証しており、表現型取得基盤が中心である。

abstractThe key innovation is the introduction of a human-defined quality function Q

Integrated design of an efficient multi spectral imaging and federated learning framework for precision crop disease diagnosis in low-resource farming communities →

Abstract Crop diseases pose significant challenges to productivity in resource-constrained settings, often remaining undiagnosed when diagnostic tools and infrastructure are either non-existent or inadequate. Current crop disease diagnosis relies on manual inspection methods that are labor-intensive, prone to error, and incapable of delivering real-time or region-specific insights in the process. Such limitations call for developing advanced diagnostic systems that are scalable and efficient in resource-constrained settings. This research introduced a comprehensive multi-spectral imaging and machine learning framework that can easily revolutionize the disease diagnosis and management inside the low-resource farming communities. Built within its core is the 3D Spectral-Spatial Convolutional Neural Network (3D SSCNN) that extracts high-resolution spectral-spatial features from hyperspectral image cubes. The accuracy achieved is around ~ 95% within 0.3 s per sample. Fed-DiagNet has provided support for distributed training that enables scalability and also data privacy to enhance the accuracy of regional models at approximately 92% as well as reduces training by almost 40%. Temporal disease progression modeling is enabled by Temporal Progression LSTM that provides dynamic trends with 90% accuracy up to a horizon of 10 days. This means that in addition to integrating disparate data sources-including hyperspectral imagery, environmental data, and pest observations-MTAN achieves an almost ~ 93% stress identification accuracy. Lastly, an RL-FO system tailors its treatment recommendations to local conditions so as to optimize for yield improvement and cost-effectiveness. With the proposed system, diagnostic precision increases to ~ 94%, and it is manifested in real-time efficiency while supporting scalability with actionable insights to empower farmers to mitigate crop losses and augment food security across several scenarios.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物病害の状態をマルチスペクトル画像から推定する画像・機械学習フレームワークの開発が研究の中心であり、植物フェノタイピング手法に該当する。

abstractThis research introduced a comprehensive multi-spectral imaging and machine learning framework that can easily revolutionize the disease diagnosis and management inside the low-resource farming communities.

A TinyMLOps Pipeline for Coarse-Grained Plant Disease Classification in Precision Agriculture →

Identifying plant health conditions is an emerging precision-agriculture and food-security challenge, intensified by deploying deep-learning models on memory- and power-constrained edge devices. We present a TinyMLOps pipeline spanning model design, optimization, quantization, and deployment across diverse edge devices, evaluated under controlled laboratory conditions. Using a dataset derived from the PlantVillage benchmark, 39 fine-grained classes are aggregated into three superclasses: healthy leaf, unhealthy leaf, and no leaves. The resulting system therefore performs plant health-status classification and background filtering rather than diagnosing specific diseases. We train a MobileNet-based convolutional neural network jointly optimized for classification accuracy and computational efficiency, adopting state-of-the-art hyperparameter optimization (HPO) tools. Five models are selected, four from the Pareto Front and one as the biggest evaluated model during HPO, converted to LiteRT and ONNX, and evaluated at float32 and post-training int8 precision on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and an STM32H743ZI microcontroller. At float32, LiteRT is 1.87–2.65× faster than ONNX Runtime on the Raspberry Pi across all five models. Relative to their float32 LiteRT counterparts, the int8 LiteRT models are 2.83–3.67× smaller on disk and 21.3–31.2% faster on the same board, at a cost in F1-score of between 0.0010 and 0.0068. On the microcontroller, only the two smallest models deploy at both precisions; for these, the fully quantized int8 variants are 4.3× faster and 3.85× smaller in MCU flash footprint than the float32 counterparts. The mid-range model fits the 2 MB flash and 1 MB RAM budget only when quantized, while the two largest models exceed it in every configuration tested.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉画像から植物の健康状態を推定する分類手法と、エッジデバイス向けの最適化・量子化・展開パイプラインが研究の中心であり、植物状態の画像ベースフェノタイピングに該当する。

abstractWe present a TinyMLOps pipeline spanning model design, optimization, quantization, and deployment across diverse edge devices, evaluated under controlled laboratory conditions.

Application of the OliveID morphometric tool for the identification of archaeobotanical carbonized olive endocarps: evidence for morphological continuity with the modern Throumbolia cultivar. →

Introduction This study evaluates the applicability of digital morphometric analysis to images of archaeological carbonized olive endocarps as a proof-of-concept initial approach for archaeobotanical investigations. Conventional morphometric analyses of olive endocarps largely rely on manual measurements, limiting reproducibility and quantitative comparison. Methods Ten archaeological endocarps were selected from previously published archaeological assemblages based on the integrity of their outlines, apex-base morphology and overall preservation quality. Quantitative descriptors describing endocarp size, symmetry, curvature and contour geometry were extracted using the OliveID software and compared with a modern morphometric reference database comprising Greek and international olive cultivars. Results Reliable contour extraction and quantitative descriptor computation were successfully achieved for all archaeological specimens despite carbonization. Preliminary comparison of representative morphometric descriptors showed that the archaeological specimens were positioned within the morphometric variation observed among the modern reference collection. Hierarchical clustering consistently associated the archaeological endocarps with the modern Throumbolia morphotype, while distinguishing them from elongated, globular and mucro-bearing cultivars. Discussion These findings demonstrate the feasibility of applying digital image-based morphometric analysis to sufficiently preserved archaeological carbonized olive endocarps and indicate a similar morphometric affinity between the analyzed archaeological material and the modern Throumbolia cultivar. This proof-of-concept study highlights the potential of digital morphometric approaches for quantitative archaeobotanical investigations of archaeological olive remains, while emphasizing the need for larger archaeological datasets and standardized image acquisition to further validate the observed morphometric similarity.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsOliveIDを用いて炭化オリーブ内果皮の輪郭からサイズ、対称性、曲率、形状記述子を抽出し、デジタル画像形態計測の適用可能性と再現性を評価している。植物器官の形質抽出法が研究の中心である。

abstractThis study evaluates the applicability of digital morphometric analysis to images of archaeological carbonized olive endocarps as a proof-of-concept initial approach for archaeobotanical investigations.

Sugarcane Plant Disease Classification Based on Leaf Image Using ConvNeXt V2 Deep Learning Model →

Sugarcane plant diseases pose a significant threat to agricultural productivity, yet early and accurate identification remains challenging for farmers due to the limitations of manual inspection. This study proposes a sugarcane leaf disease classification system using ConvNeXt V2 Tiny, a modern convolutional architecture with a Global Response Normalization (GRN) mechanism, combined with an ensemble Stratified K-Fold Cross Validation strategy (K=6) to improve generalization on real-world field data. A dataset of 2,948 leaf images spanning five classes (Red Rot, Mosaic, Rust, Yellow Leaf, and Healthy) was used, with field-collected images held out as a fixed test set. The ensemble model achieved a mean validation accuracy of 98.49% ± 0.58% across six folds and a test accuracy of 98.39% on 427 unseen field images, with macro-average precision, recall, and F1-score each reaching 98%. ConvNeXt V2 Tiny substantially outperformed ResNet-50 (87.35%) and EfficientNetV2-S (83.37%) under identical experimental settings, demonstrating superior generalization across the domain gap between curated and field data. The primary contribution of this study is the first application of ConvNeXt V2 Tiny with ensemble K-Fold strategy for sugarcane disease classification, offering high accuracy with moderate computational complexity (28.6M parameters) and practical deployability, as demonstrated through the SugarScan web application.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsサトウキビ葉画像から病害状態を推定する画像ベースの表現型解析手法が研究の中心であり、モデル性能の検証・比較も実施しているため含める。

abstractThis study proposes a sugarcane leaf disease classification system using ConvNeXt V2 Tiny

UNet-ECA-Bio: a biologically informed deep learning model for high-throughput micro-phenotyping of rice stem vascular bundles. →

Rice stem internal structure is a critical micro-phenotype influencing lodging resistance and yield; however, its analysis remains constrained by labor-intensive manual methods. Here, we present a publicly available dataset of 686 rice stem cross-sections, with 21,027 large vascular bundles (LVBs) and 19,342 small vascular bundles (SVBs) manually annotated. Five deep learning architectures were systematically evaluated, among which UNet-VGG16 achieved the best performance with a mean intersection over union (mIoU) of 87.4% (82.49% for LVBs and 74.41% for SVBs). An improved model, UNet-ECA-Bio, further raised mIoU to 89.32% and SVB IoU to 78.97% by integrating Efficient Channel Attention (ECA) and biologically informed class weighting using an image-level dataset. Leveraging these high-accuracy phenotypic predictions, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) indicated concordance between annotated and predicted traits, with SNP overlap rates of 96% (LVB count: 1,217/1,262), 43% (SVB count: 6/14), 98% (stem area: 122/124), and 100% (cavity area: 3/3) at −log10(p) ≥ 6. Meanwhile, compared with manual annotation (estimated 10–30 minutes per image), the proposed approach processed all 686 images within 10 minutes, representing a >600-fold increase in throughput. We further developed a user-friendly software tool, “Rice_Stem_Pre_V1.1.exe,” for automated phenotyping of 14 stem traits, providing a cost-effective platform for genetic studies of lodging resistance and yield improvement.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsイネ茎維管束の画像から複数の表現型形質を自動抽出する深層学習モデル、データセット、検証、ソフトウェアを中心的に開発しており、明確な植物フェノタイピング手法研究である。

abstractwe present a publicly available dataset of 686 rice stem cross-sections, with 21,027 large vascular bundles (LVBs) and 19,342 small vascular bundles (SVBs) manually annotated.

Garryanalyzer: A morphometric workflow and open-source ImageJ plug-in for quantitative morphological analysis of Pacific Northwest Quercus leaves. →

Premise Accurate species identification is crucial for ecological restoration and can be especially challenging for understudied non-model species. Quercus garryana is the only native oak species in the Pacific Northwest and is an important component of the endangered oak savanna ecosystem. Quercus robur is an imported ornamental species from Europe and has been found to be mistakenly planted as Q. garryana in habitat restoration projects. Methods We measured leaf morphological traits sampled from herbarium collections in their native ranges using the digital morphometric tools MorphoLeaf and Tomato Analyzer. We then used Lasso logistic analysis to generate a predictive model and tested it on leaves from Portland, Oregon. To streamline this species detection process, we developed Garryanalyzer, an ImageJ plug-in that automatically measures leaf traits and outputs species predictions. Results Garryanalyzer demonstrated 95% accuracy in predicting the species identity of herbarium specimens of oaks. Garryanalyzer correctly identified all Q. robur individuals sampled in Portland but showed lower accuracy for Q. garryana . Discussion Many existing morphometric software are not open source, which makes them unable to be customized to specific study systems. Garryanalyzer is built upon the widely used open-source ImageJ platform. This study also demonstrates a viable workflow for developing similar tools for other ecologically important non-model plant species.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉の形態形質を自動測定し、種予測まで行うImageJプラグインとワークフローの開発・評価が中心であり、植物フェノタイピング手法として適格です。

abstractTo streamline this species detection process, we developed Garryanalyzer, an ImageJ plug-in that automatically measures leaf traits and outputs species predictions.

MatchPlant: An Open-Source Pipeline for UAV-Based Single-Plant Detection from Undistorted Images with Orthomosaic Projection →

Accurate identification of individual plants from unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery is essential for high-throughput phenotyping and data-driven decision-making in plant breeding. This study presents MatchPlant, a modular, open-source Python pipeline with a graphical user interface for UAV-based single-plant detection and geospatial trait extraction. The pipeline integrates UAV image processing, user-guided annotation of selected undistorted images, convolutional neural network–based object-detection training, forward projection of bounding boxes onto an orthomosaic, and shapefile generation for spatial phenotypic analysis. This workflow preserves native image geometry during detection while maintaining coordinate traceability from source imagery to georeferenced outputs. Across five independent training runs using early-season maize imagery, MatchPlant achieved source-image-level detection performance of AP@0.5 = 90.3 ± 1.1% and mAP@0.5:0.95 = 43.4 ± 2.9%. Orthomosaic-level evaluation after forward projection showed AP@0.5 = 89.7 ± 0.8% and recall = 93.7 ± 1.2%, demonstrating the workflow’s ability to transfer plant detections into georeferenced outputs. Plant-level traits, including plant height derived from canopy height models and NDVI derived from vegetation index rasters, showed strong agreement with manual annotations ( r = 0.87–0.97). Detection outputs were reused across time points with minimal additional annotation, supporting temporal phenotyping during early growth. The framework was validated using maize imagery from a single site and growing season, where plant separation remained clear. By combining modular design, reproducibility, and coordinate traceability, MatchPlant provides an open-source workflow for UAV-based plant-level analysis, with broader applications requiring validation across additional crops, sensors, growth stages, GSDs, and field conditions.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsUAV画像から個体検出と植物形質（草高・NDVI）を抽出する、オープンソースの再利用可能なワークフローを開発・検証しており、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractThis study presents MatchPlant, a modular, open-source Python pipeline with a graphical user interface for UAV-based single-plant detection and geospatial trait extraction.

StyleGAN3-T: an alias-free generative framework for synthetic plant disease image augmentation and recognition. →

To address this challenge, we propose StyleGAN3-T, the translation-equivariant alias-free variant of StyleGAN3, as a generative framework for producing high-fidelity synthetic plant disease images, integrated with a hybrid Swin Transformer-ResNet50 classifier for precise recognition. Accurate detection of plant leaf diseases is essential for sustainable agriculture and early intervention. However, deep learning models often struggle with small, imbalanced datasets that limit generalization and robustness. To address this challenge, we propose StyleGAN3-T, a novel alias-free generative framework for producing high-fidelity synthetic plant disease images, integrated with a hybrid Swin Transformer-ResNet50 classifier for precise recognition. The proposed approach ensures translation-equivariant, artifact-free image synthesis and enhanced feature diversity. A balanced dataset of 18,000 images was developed by combining real and StyleGAN3-T-generated samples. In pooled GAN benchmarking, StyleGAN2-ADA achieved the strongest generative-quality metrics, whereas StyleGAN3-T was selected as the preferred augmentation model because its alias-free synthesis and spatial consistency yielded superior downstream classification performance in the proposed pipeline.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物病害画像を合成・認識する画像解析手法が研究の中心であり、植物の病害状態を画像から推定するフェノタイピング手法に該当する。

abstractwe propose StyleGAN3-T, a novel alias-free generative framework for producing high-fidelity synthetic plant disease images, integrated with a hybrid Swin Transformer-ResNet50 classifier for precise recognition.

Lightweight real-time detectors of apple-leaf diseases operating on embedded devices. →

Agricultural leaf disease detection is crucial for early intervention and yield protection in precision agriculture. Among representative economic crops, such as apples, leaf lesions are typically small and appear in complex backgrounds, making accurate detection performed on resource-constrained embedded devices challenging. To address this, we propose a lightweight small-object detection models, namely the dynamic Differential Compensation Lightweight-YOLO (DCL-YOLO) model and its pruned version (DCL-YOLO-P), based on YOLO11n. A novel Dual-Aspect Feature Complementary Mapping (DAFCM) module type is embedded in their backbone to recover lost semantic and spatial information, while the original YOLO11n's neck is replaced by an Efficient Enhanced Cross-Scale Feature Fusion (EE-CSFF) module, which incorporates Gated Differential Convolutional Fusion (GDCF) modules to strengthen cross-scale information flow and small-object representation. Experimental results obtained on the ALDSOD dataset show that, compared with the YOLO11n baseline, DCL-YOLO improves recall from 81.9% to 84.6%, mAP50 from 86.8% to 88.4%, and mAP50:95 from 47.0% to 47.8%, while also reducing the parameter count from 2.58 M to 1.91 M and Giga Floating-Point Operations (GFLOPs) from 6.3 to 5.5. After applying Layer-Adaptive Magnitude-based Pruning (LAMP), the parameter count and GFLOPs are further reduced to 0.75 M and 2.7, respectively, with mAP50 and mAP50:95 still exceeding the baseline by 1.2 and 0.5 percentage points, respectively. When deployed on an embedded device, the pruned model achieved 15.2 FPS and 139 msec per image, confirming its applicability in real-time scenarios. Furthermore, cross-domain validation, performed on the Global Wheat Head Detection (GWHD) dataset, indicates the stable generalization capabilities of the proposed models across environmental domain shifts. The DCL-YOLO's source code is publicly available at: https://github.com/q123-code/dcl-yolo.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsリンゴ葉の病斑を画像から検出する軽量モデルを開発し、データセットで性能比較・クロスドメイン検証・組込み機器での実装評価を行っており、植物の病害状態推定手法が研究の中心です。

abstractTo address this, we propose a lightweight small-object detection models, namely the dynamic Differential Compensation Lightweight-YOLO (DCL-YOLO) model and its pruned version (DCL-YOLO-P), based on YOLO11n.

PlantCV v4: Image analysis software for high-throughput plant phenotyping →

PlantCV is an open-source Python project aimed at developing tools to address a range of image-based, plant phenotyping questions. PlantCV has been used for more than 10 years to automate trait collection from image data, and the newest release, PlantCV version 4, continues to lower the barrier to entry for users without substantial coding experience through extensive example use-case tutorials and simplified installation. In addition to usability, we document added functionality since the release of PlantCV v2, including support for more image types such as fluorescence, thermal, and hyperspectral data. Finally, we describe the development of a new subpackage focused on morphological trait measurements like leaf angle, and demonstrate its utility as compared to more manual methods of data collection.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物フェノタイピング用の画像解析ソフトウェア開発と、形態形質測定機能の実証が中心である。

abstractPlantCV is an open-source Python project aimed at developing tools to address a range of image-based, plant phenotyping questions.

LeafLiteX mobile application for leaf disease detection using U-Net segmentation and lightweight deep learning. →

Agriculture is significant in world food production and global economic stability, but leaf disease and pest infection can cause a threat to crop quantity and quality. Thus, it became crucial to have timely and accurate identification of plant leaf disease to prevent loss in agriculture on a large scale and to have sustainable crop management. This paper introduces LeafLiteX, a lightweight mobile-based deep learning application for real-time detection and classification of leaf diseases. This application uses U-Net segmentation to precisely find leaf regions and MobileNetV3-Large to quickly classify diseases with less computation on the computer. The application performs end-to-end processing, from image acquisition to segmentation and disease prediction on mobile devices. An experiment was performed on publicly available crop disease datasets containing various leaf images having different disease types. The model obtained an accuracy of 98.85% showing improved generalization with minimal latency. The design of the model was such that it was suitable for inference on-device while still being robust enough despite changes in lighting conditions, background noise, and camera resolution. LeafLiteX is a low-cost, easy to use, offline-capable, and in-the-moment decision-making supportive diagnostic application that supports farmers and agrarians who require early detection. This paper demonstrates the capabilities that can be achieved using edge-optimized machine learning and computer vision to support the development of smart agriculture technologies. While traditional methods rely solely on classification, this research focuses more on practical implementation by incorporating segmentation, lightweight classification, and explainability to develop a mobile-friendly model.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉画像から病害状態をセグメンテーション・分類する手法とモバイルアプリ自体が研究の中心であり、植物病害の表現型推定に該当する。

abstractThis paper introduces LeafLiteX, a lightweight mobile-based deep learning application for real-time detection and classification of leaf diseases.

Stomatalia: a deep learning-based platform for quantitative stomata and pavement cell analysis. →

Abstract Background Stomata and pavement cells are fundamental components of the leaf epidermis, jointly regulating gas exchange, water loss, and leaf surface expansion. Stomata size, aperture, density, and pavement cell morphology are critical parameters for assessing plant transpiration efficiency, epidermal growth dynamics, and adaptive responses to environmental constraints. Despite their biological importance, quantifying stomatal and pavement-cell traits remains seldom not generalized, simple, and fast enough . Manual or semi-automated approaches limit large-scale phenotyping and restrict the integration of epidermal morphology into crop-improvement pipelines aimed at developing climate-resilient varieties with optimised stomatal patterning. To address such limitations, we developed Stomatalia , a deep learning-based platform designed to automate and standardise the quantification of stomatal and pavement cell traits. The algorithm was trained on epidermal images of cultivated and wild potato and tomato genotypes grown under optimal and abiotic-stress conditions. Stomatalia automatically detects stomata and pavement cells and extracts a broad range of morphological and integrative epidermal parameters, enabling high-throughput phenotyping within a unified workflow. Results Prior to platform development, we optimised a rapid, minimally-destructive leaf-printing protocol that generates negative impressions of the leaf surface within 40–100 s. Transparent positive prints were subsequently produced and imaged under a light microscope at scale settings ranging from 20 to 200 μm. The resulting images are analysed using Stomatalia’s user-friendly web-based interface, which runs an instance-segmentation deep learning algorithm to detect, count, and calculate stomatal and pavement cell parameters. The platform outputs structured files containing raw measurements, derived integrative traits, and associated metadata, facilitating downstream statistical and physiological analyses. Algorithm evaluation on independent datasets demonstrated high performance within the validated dicot imaging domain, with F 1 -scores ranging from 0.86 to 0.94 depending on image scale, species, and resolution, and high segmentation overlap for both stomata and pavement cells. The generality of stomatal detection was also tested on spring onion, chickpea, balsam poplar, and wheat in cross-species feasibility tests, although performance was more variable in monocots, and pavement-cell segmentation remained species- and architecture-dependent. Benchmarking against another publicly available app further showed that, under the tested web interface settings and image types, Stomatalia exhibited closer agreement with manual counts and substantially faster processing times. The practical performance of Stomatalia was further tested in a proof-of-concept trial with potato plants subjected to optimal irrigation and a long, gradual drought. The platform reliably quantified epidermal traits despite variations in leaf morphology and image quality, supporting the integrated interpretation of stomatal and pavement-cell responses under stress. Conclusions We developed Stomatalia as a robust, user-friendly deep learning platform for automated, high-throughput analysis of bright-field leaf epidermal images across varying magnifications and resolutions. Stomatalia facilitates rapid, reproducible, and coordinated phenotyping of stomatal and pavement cells by integrating methodological standardisation, computational automation, and multi-trait extraction in a single analytical workflow. Its strongest current application is the analysis of high-quality dicot leaf-print images, particularly in species and imaging conditions similar to those used for model training and validation. Cross-species and benchmark analyses further define its current scope: stomatal detection can be transferred to some additional epidermal architectures, whereas robust pavement-cell segmentation in monocots or highly divergent species will require further annotation and model retraining. Within these defined boundaries, Stomatalia provides a flexible and extensible framework for studying stomatal and pavement cell morphology and environmental plasticity, while also supporting broader efforts to dissect and optimise plant responses to abiotic stress.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods気孔・舗装細胞の形態形質を画像から自動抽出する深層学習プラットフォームを開発し、独立データで性能評価・比較検証しているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractwe developed Stomatalia , a deep learning-based platform designed to automate and standardise the quantification of stomatal and pavement cell traits.

Automatic prediction of cotton leaf's diseases using deep learning techniques. →

Cotton leaf diseases present a major threat to global cotton production, significantly impacting both yield and fiber quality. Traditional diagnostic methods are labor-intensive, time-consuming, and demand highly skilled professionals, making them inefficient for large-scale agricultural applications. Although earlier deep learning -based approaches have shown promising results in identifying cotton leaf diseases such as Bacterial Blight, Fusarium Wilt, and Curl Virus Disease, their performance is often limited by complex preprocessing requirements and insufficient generalization to real-world field conditions. To address these challenges, this study proposes and optimized transfer learning-based model, CLDP-CNN, designed to enhance feature extraction and classification efficiency using pre-trained deep neural networks. This study demonstrates the development of Cotton Leaf Disease Prediction Convolutional Neural Network (CLDP-CNN) automatically, utilizing Transfer Learning (TL) which operates on meticulously prepared datasets. Two distinct datasets were used to train the model: the first consisted of field images from cotton farms, while the second was sourced from Kaggle. The main goal of this research examines how the model performs on real-world field datasets. The CLDP-CNN model has proven highly accurate by attaining 99.78% detection success rates for cotton leaf diseases when processing primary dataset which surpasses its secondary dataset accuracy rate of 99.62%. Both the primary dataset and secondary dataset resulted in high accuracy values for the VGG16 pre-trained model which achieved 99.56% accuracy on the primary dataset and 98.82% on the secondary dataset. A web-based application enhances the capabilities of the CLDP-CNN model by providing real-time updates on the health status of cotton plants. This technology empowers farmers with valuable information, enabling them to take timely protective actions to prevent potential severe yield losses in their cotton crops.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods綿花葉の画像から病害状態を推定する深層学習モデルを開発・評価しており、植物フェノタイピング手法が研究の中心です。

abstractThe main goal of this research examines how the model performs on real-world field datasets.

BerryBox: An affordable computer vision system for postharvest phenotyping of cranberry and other small fruits →

Abstract Fruit size, shape, color, and percent fruit rot are important quality traits for breeding cranberry ( Vaccinium macrocarpon Ait.). Image analysis can be used to measure these traits, but affordable hardware for standardized image capture and integrated user‐friendly software pipelines are lacking. Additionally, no image‐based method exists to estimate percent fruit rot, an otherwise tediously and subjectively measured trait. We created the BerryBox, a simple and inexpensive lightbox, camera mount, and accompanying software pipeline to standardize the capture and analysis of postharvest fruit images. Trained deep neural network models were highly accurate for segmenting sound fruit (F1 score: 99.4%) and detecting rotten fruit (F1 score: 98.5%). We applied the BerryBox to images of cranberries harvested across 3 years from a 156‐clone breeding population. Narrow‐sense heritability estimates of image‐based fruit color, shape, size, and percent fruit rot ranged from 0.37 to 0.95. Random subsampling showed that 25–30 berries per genotype were sufficient to describe the variation in the full dataset. We demonstrated the utility of BerryBox traits in a small‐scale genetic linkage mapping analysis, detecting significant marker–trait associations that coincided with those of traditionally measured traits. The BerryBox software was able to accurately segment fruit from images of blueberries without model retraining, showing its applicability to other similarly shaped fruits. The software pipeline and BerryBox materials and assembly instructions are publicly available for others to adopt for low‐cost image‐based phenotyping.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsクランベリー等の果実形質と腐敗率を画像から抽出する低コスト撮像装置・ソフトウェアパイプラインを開発し、精度検証と他果実への適用性評価を行った、中心的な植物フェノタイピング手法研究である。

abstractWe created the BerryBox, a simple and inexpensive lightbox, camera mount, and accompanying software pipeline to standardize the capture and analysis of postharvest fruit images.

Robust quantification of multiplexed fluorescent protein-based biosensors in plant tissues. →

Genetically encoded biosensors are one of the essential tools in biological research. They enable visualization of molecules of interest from the subcellular level to entire organism level in vivo and can be used to monitor the presence of small molecules, gene expression, protein activity, and protein degradation. However, multiplexing fluorescent biosensors in plants is notoriously difficult due to signal bleed-through and strong autofluorescence from chlorophyll. In this study, we investigated the potential of multiplexing biosensors based on the selection of reporter fluorescent proteins. We characterized the emission spectra, fluorescence lifetimes, and relative brightness of diverse fluorescent proteins in plant leaves. We show that selected proteins exhibit comparable brightness, supporting their use in co-expression experiments and reliable quantification of individual signals. To separate three overlapping signals, we applied two different linear unmixing approaches and compared them to results obtained without unmixing. We identified the channel separation unmixing approach as the most suitable for biosensors. Additionally, we show how unmixing with the selected approach can be applied to separate autofluorescence and five fluorescent proteins. We further validated this approach in virus-infected cells by following organelle dynamics in vivo. Finally, we demonstrate the feasibility of high-throughput segmentation and quantification with a custom MATLAB workflow for nuclei, chloroplasts, and cytoplasm signal analysis. Overall, our work demonstrates that biosensors can be multiplexed, even when their emission spectra overlap.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物組織における蛍光シグナルの分離、画像セグメンテーション、定量化ワークフローを開発・比較・検証しており、植物の細胞・細胞小器官状態を測定する方法が中心である。

abstractTo separate three overlapping signals, we applied two different linear unmixing approaches and compared them to results obtained without unmixing.

Deep aerenchyma: a transformer-based pipeline for scalable phenotyping of rice root aerenchyma lacunae across environments. →

Abstract Background Quantification of rice root anatomical traits such as cortical aerenchyma lacunae is key to understanding rice adaptation to diverse water regimes and to support climate-smart breeding. Aerenchyma lacunae contributes to rice internal gas transport and influences methane emissions from flooded systems and can also limit rice water conductivity. It could be an interesting anatomical trait for breeding, however, large-scale anatomical phenotyping remains limited because manual analysis of root cross-sections is labor-intensive, subjective, and difficult to scale across heterogeneous imaging conditions. Existing pipelines often require parameter tuning and do not generalize well across environments. Results We developed a deep learning pipeline based on a vision transformer architecture to automatically segment rice root cross-sections and quantify cortical aerenchyma lacunae. The model was trained on 1,760 annotated images collected across multiple countries, growth stages, cultivation systems, and experimental contexts, using a collaboratively defined annotation protocol. The final model achieved high segmentation accuracy, with mean intersection over union values exceeding 0.92 for cortical tissues and lacunae. Quantification of the lacuna-to-cortex ratio showed strong agreement with manual annotations, with a coefficient of determination of 0.98 on an independent test set. An independent expert review indicated that model predictions were at least as consistent as manual annotations and reduced large annotation inconsistencies. The pipeline is released as open-source software and includes an interactive online demonstrator, and is accompanied by an online test dataset to support testing and reproducibility. Application across six experimental use cases revealed reproducible differences in aerenchyma lacunae across genotypes, water regimes, environments, and developmental stages. Conclusions This work provides a robust, scalable, and transferable tool for automated root anatomical phenotyping under heterogeneous experimental conditions. Transformer-based segmentation enables consistent and high-throughput quantification of lacunae, facilitating integration of these anatomical traits into breeding, physiological studies, and climate-smart crop improvement programs.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsイネ根の通気組織空隙を画像から自動セグメンテーション・定量するTransformerベースの表現型解析パイプラインを開発し、独立データで精度検証、ソフトウェアとテストデータセットを公開しているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractWe developed a deep learning pipeline based on a vision transformer architecture to automatically segment rice root cross-sections and quantify cortical aerenchyma lacunae.

WaveUNet+: Preserving Root System Architecture Integrity in In Situ Root Segmentation via a Unified Spectral-Spatial Framework. →

Root phenotypic analysis is closely related to crop yield and stress resistance. Although deep learning can improve the efficiency of root phenotype recognition, existing methods suffer from insufficient segmentation accuracy under complex soil backgrounds and focus on a single target. To address the issues of limited accuracy and operational complexity in existing root segmentation models, this paper proposes a novel wavelet-enhanced full-scale segmentation network. The WaveUNet+ model is based on U-Net3plus, replaces traditional downsampling with the Haar wavelet transform, and introduces the EMA module. The impact of the wavelet transform is validated using Grad-CAM, and HD95 is employed to evaluate the improvement in segmentation quality brought by the attention mechanism from the perspective of boundary accuracy. Transfer learning is used to improve model generalization, and the test results on diverse roots and various soils are compared. A Docker containerized root image segmentation method is designed to achieve convenient and practical operation, and the deployment feasibility of the model on edge devices is also verified. Our model effectively enhances the recognition of fine roots in soil backgrounds, leading to improvements across various metrics, achieving an Accuracy of 99.2%, while improving model accuracy with relatively low parameter count and model size. Compared with the original U-Net model, mIoU is increased by 1.52% and Recall by 2.93%. The results show that the model not only performs excellently on the original dataset but also maintains good generalization ability across different imaging modalities, crop species, and soil conditions. With Docker, users can achieve root image segmentation on their own computers without tedious program installation and environment configuration. In the future, we will attempt methods such as pruning and quantization to reduce model size, so as to better adapt to the deployment requirements of edge devices.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods根系画像から根系形態を抽出するセグメンテーション手法を開発し、複数条件で精度・汎化性・境界性能を検証しているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractTo address the issues of limited accuracy and operational complexity in existing root segmentation models, this paper proposes a novel wavelet-enhanced full-scale segmentation network.

Ensemble-Based Plant Disease Detection with Mini TensorFlow on Risc Devices and Chatbot →

The research trains and evaluates multiple CNN architectures, including Basic CNN, AlexNet, VGG16, and EfficientNet B0, to enhance the accuracy of plant disease identification. Each model was tested using the New Plant Diseases Dataset from Kaggle, which includes various plant species and diseases, in order to assess performance, accuracy, and efficiency. The trained models were subsequently integrated into a Marathi language chatbot to facilitate real-time disease detection and provide agricultural guidance. This study provides valuable insights into the strengths and limitations of different models for precision agriculture, especially in applications that support regional languages to encourage accessible and sustainable farming practices. Additionally, a Marathi language chatbot is incorporated, enabling users to obtain plant disease information instantly through a user-friendly web application

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物病害状態を画像から識別するCNN群を訓練・評価し、リアルタイム検出システムへ統合しており、病害フェノタイプの取得・推定手法が中心である。

abstractThe research trains and evaluates multiple CNN architectures, including Basic CNN, AlexNet, VGG16, and EfficientNet B0, to enhance the accuracy of plant disease identification.

Implementation of a Plant Disease Identification System using the CNN Algorithm and the Web-Based Django Framework →

This study addresses the need for efficient and accessible plant disease identification systems in the era of Agriculture 4.0, where advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) support data-driven agricultural practices. The increasing popularity of home gardening highlights challenges faced by users in identifying plant diseases due to limited knowledge and diagnostic tools. Therefore, this research aims to develop a web plant disease detection system using the Django framework and convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The model was trained on a controlled dataset consisting of 57,320 leaf images collected from the PlantVillage and Turmeric Plant Disease datasets. Image preprocessing was applied, including resizing, normalization, and data augmentation such as image rotation, zooming, image inversion and brightness adjustmen. Class imbalance during training was handled using class weighting. The dataset is divided into a training set and a validation set for model development and evaluation. The CNN model achieved an accuracy of 92% on the labeled validation dataset, with a mean F1 score of 0.79 and a weighted mean F1 score of 0.92. For generalization testing, an uncontrolled (wild) dataset consisting of 223 images collected from online sources was used, resulting in an accuracy of 11%, indicating limited real-world generalization due to domain differences. Despite this limitation, the proposed system demonstrates the feasibility of CNN-based plant disease classification in a web application.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsCNNによる葉画像からの植物病害識別システムを開発し、検証データと野外データで性能評価しているため、植物の病害状態を推定する画像ベースのフェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractthis research aims to develop a web plant disease detection system using the Django framework and convolutional neural networks (CNNs).

GreenAid: a confidence-weighted ensemble deep learning system for real-time plant disease detection and management. →

Plant diseases cause 20-40% annual crop losses worldwide, yet conventional detection methods remain slow, subjective, and inaccessible to smallholder farmers. This work presents GreenAid, an end-to-end plant disease detection and management system that bridges the gap between laboratory-level deep learning performance and practical agricultural deployment. The system integrates a confidence-weighted ensemble of three CNN architectures (VGG16, ResNet50, InceptionV3), fused through per-class F1-score reliability weights, with a cross-platform mobile application supporting offline inference via TensorFlow Lite, a web-based analytics dashboard, and an NLP-powered chatbot. On the PlantVillage benchmark (87,000 images, 38 classes, 14 species), the ensemble achieves 98.74% accuracy and 98.48% F1-score. Systematic comparison of six fusion strategies confirms that per-class F1 weighting outperforms alternatives including majority voting, simple averaging, and stacking. The INT8-quantised deployment model (78 MB, 127 ms on a mid-range smartphone) retains 98.43% accuracy with per-class analysis confirming disproportionate impact on the five most challenging categories. All pairwise model comparisons are validated by McNemar's test ([Formula: see text]). The primary contribution is the complete, reproducible integration of competitive classification, edge deployment, and an end-to-end agricultural delivery pipeline (mobile application, web dashboard, and NLP chatbot) rather than the ensemble mechanism itself.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物画像から病害状態を推定する深層学習手法の開発・比較検証と、モバイル実装が中心であり、植物病害フェノタイピング手法として適格。

abstractThis work presents GreenAid, an end-to-end plant disease detection and management system

A lightweight graph-enhanced deep learning framework for explainable cucumber leaf disease diagnosis. →

Accurate and efficient identification of cucumber leaf diseases is a critical step in preventing losses and facilitating timely intervention in agricultural activi-ties. However, most state-of-the-art plant disease recognition models, including those employing deep learning, often fail to identify spatial dependencies among symptomatic leaf feature regions, require high computational resources, and lack robustness in their predictions. To overcome these challenges, this paper pro-poses MobileGraph, a graph-aided deep learning model that jointly reasons local texture patterns and spatial dependencies among CNN-derived cucumber leaf feature regions using MobileNetV3 as a lightweight feature extractor. Experi-ments on a publicly available cucumber leaf disease dataset containing 5 classes and 4,000 images show that the proposed model achieves 99.75% accuracy, 99.75% macro F1-score, and 99.69% MCC, outperforming several state-of-the-art models including ResNet-152, EfficientNet-B7, DenseNet-201, ConvNeXt, and VGG16, while having a significantly lower computational cost of 0.465 GFLOPs. Explainability results from Grad-CAM and LIME indicate that the model is focused on biologically important regions of plant lesions. Furthermore, a proto-type mobile application illustrates the feasibility of real-time cucumber disease diagnosis for practical agricultural monitoring. These results indicate that Mobi-leGraph provides an efficient and interpretable solution for intelligent crop health surveillance.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsキュウリ葉の病斑という植物状態を画像から診断する深層学習手法を開発し、複数モデルとの性能比較・検証まで行っており、病害表現型の取得・推定が研究の中心である。

abstractExplainability results from Grad-CAM and LIME indicate that the model is focused on biologically important regions of plant lesions.

A TensorFlow-Based CNN Model for Widespread Detection of Rice and Potato Leaf Diseases →

Abstract Rice and potatoes are major crops in Bangladesh, frequently affected by major disease outbreaks that challenge food security. Inaccurate disease identification often contributes to yield losses. Recently, machine learning garnered much attention in identifying crop diseases. The present study was conducted to develop a deep learning model-based image‑analysis system that automatically identifies key diseases of Bangladeshi rice and potato, and integrates it into a web app to provide farmers with rapid, accurate diagnoses. The system employs a convolutional neural network (CNN) implemented with TensorFlow’s Sequential API, featuring ReLU-activated hidden layers and a Softmax output layer. A dataset of 4,809 images, comprising both healthy and diseased, was collected and processed through pre-processing, feature extraction, and classification. A web-based application was deployed utilizing the Python Streamlit framework. This application integrates the proposed model to predict 2 rice diseases viz. blast ( Magnaporthe oryzae ), bacterial leaf blight ( Xanthomonas campestris ), and 2 potato diseases viz. Early blight (Alternaria solani) and Late blight ( Phytophthora infestans ) from uploaded images, providing a confidence score for the predictions with approximately 92.84% for all detected diseases. The proposed model achieved a training accuracy of 0.9357, a validation accuracy of 0.8983, and a test accuracy of 0.9333. The developed web application indicates strong diagnostic performance for four major diseases, offering Bangladeshi farmers an accessible tool to make timely management decisions.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsイネ・ジャガイモ葉の病徴を画像から分類するCNNと実用Webアプリを開発・評価しており、植物の病害状態推定が中心的な方法論的貢献である。

abstractdevelop a deep learning model-based image‑analysis system that automatically identifies key diseases of Bangladeshi rice and potato

Hybrid multimodal learning framework for crop disease detection, adaptive treatment, and price forecasting →

Crop diseases play a significant role in food production globally; therefore, there is an urgent need to develop quick and accurate diagnostic techniques that are more effective than manual inspection methods. The proposed hybrid multimodal learning framework in this research provides a solution that integrates adaptive therapy suggestion, market price prediction, and image-based disease detection. This study also proposes a framework for pesticide recommendation and the treatment of plants. This study experiment on tomato and cotton crop leaf data for disease detection. Experimental results on a tomato crop disease detection dataset show that the proposed model shows high performance. EfficientNetB0 provides more stability and generalization capabilities in different scenarios compared to other models, such as YOLOv8, ResNet50, and a custom CNN model. The use of a knowledge-based decision support system provides sustainable pesticide recommendations based on environmental and symptom-specific parameters. Forecasting of pesticide prices through LSTM methods yields forecasts within 3.2% and 4.1% MAE, enabling improved decision-making by providing instant points of reference for potential price movements. Research uses SHAP and LIME to provide explainability to users, thus improving user buy-in through transparency. Overall, this modular system provides a data-driven decision-making model to improve the efficiency of managing crops.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物葉画像から病害状態を推定する画像ベース手法を、複数モデルで比較評価しており、植物病害フェノタイピングがシステムの主要構成要素です。価格予測や農薬推薦も含みますが、病害検出の技術評価が明示されています。

abstractThe proposed hybrid multimodal learning framework in this research provides a solution that integrates adaptive therapy suggestion, market price prediction, and image-based disease detection.

AMnet: An Explainable Graph Based Inception Framework for Aegle marmelos Leaf Disease Classification →

Abstract Aegle marmelos (bael) is a medicinally important tropical crop that remains severely underrepresented in computational plant pathology research. This study proposes AMnet, a deep learning framework integrating an InceptionV3 backbone with a fixed graph convolutional network to capture both within-region disease texture and between-region spatial propagation patterns for automated four-class classification of Aegle marmelos leaf diseases: Cercospora leaf, healthy leaf, leaf curl, and leaf spot. The graph module constructs a 25-node spatial graph directly from CNN feature maps, enabling end-to-end training without external preprocessing. Compared against MobileNetV2, InceptionV3, VGG19, and DenseNet201, AMnet achieved the best overall performance with 98.83% accuracy, 98.84% F1-score, 99.95% PR-AUC, and 98.45% MCC, alongside the fastest inference time of 1.83 ms. Robustness was confirmed through bootstrap confidence interval estimation and four-fold cross-validation. PCA-based clustering analysis with silhouette scoring and Davies–Bouldin indexing demonstrated clear class separability in the learned embeddings. Grad-CAM and LIME visualizations confirmed that predictions were grounded in biologically meaningful leaf regions rather than background artifacts. A Gradio-based prototype further demonstrated practical deployment potential. Although broader field validation remains necessary, AMnet provides an accurate, interpretable, and reproducible framework for diagnosing Aegle marmelos leaf disease.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉画像から植物の病害状態を分類する説明可能な深層学習手法を開発・比較・検証しており、植物表現型（病徴・病害状態）の取得・推定が中心的です。

abstractThis study proposes AMnet, a deep learning framework integrating an InceptionV3 backbone with a fixed graph convolutional network to capture both within-region disease texture and between-region spatial propagation patterns for automated four-class classification of Aegle marmelos leaf diseases: Cercospora leaf, healthy leaf, leaf curl, and leaf spot.

Quantitative RNA spatial profiling using single-molecule RNA FISH on plant tissue cryosections. →

Single-molecule fluorescence in situ hybridization (smFISH) has emerged as a powerful tool for studying gene expression dynamics with unparalleled precision and spatial resolution in a variety of biological systems. Recent advancements have expanded its application to encompass plant studies, yet there remains a need for a simple and robust smFISH method adapted to plant tissue sections. Here, we present an optimized smFISH protocol, termed cryo-smFISH, for visualizing and quantifying single mRNA molecules in plant tissue cryosections. This method exhibits remarkable sensitivity, enabling the detection of low-expression transcripts, including long non-coding RNAs. By integrating a deep learning-based algorithm into our image analysis pipeline, our method enables precise assignment of RNA abundance in nuclear and cytoplasmic compartments. The method also enables robust integration with immunofluorescence, as cryosectioning enhances antibody penetration. This allows for the sequential visualization and quantification of both RNAs and endogenous proteins within the same cells. Finally, this study demonstrates the use of smFISH to validate single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) expression patterns in plant tissues. By extending smFISH to plant cryosections, plant scientists will be able to exploit the full potential of quantitative transcript analysis at cellular and subcellular resolution.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物組織向けcryo-smFISHプロトコルと画像解析法を開発し、RNA量を細胞・細胞内区画で定量する手法が研究の中心である。分子測定ではあるが、植物組織の状態を定量する方法として技術的貢献が明確。

abstractHere, we present an optimized smFISH protocol, termed cryo-smFISH, for visualizing and quantifying single mRNA molecules in plant tissue cryosections.

A Lightweight Convolutional Neural Network with Neighbourhood Attention and a 100- Category Dataset for Plant Disease Detection →

Plant disease detection is vital for agricultural sustainability and food security. While Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Vision Transformers (ViTs) have achieved high accuracy in this domain, CNNs often require millions of parameters and substantial computation. ViTs suffer from the quadratic time and space complexity of self-attention (SA), limiting their use on resource-constrained devices. Although SA is capable of modelling long-range dependencies when symptoms are dispersed, many plant diseases exhibit small, localized lesions or texture changes; therefore, Neighborhood Attention (NA) offers a more efficient and targeted alternative by focusing on nearby regions rather than the entire image. This work proposes a custom Localized NA block implemented in TensorFlow/Keras that operates directly on CNN feature maps, bypassing patch embedding and transformer modules. A lightweight CNN is then developed by combining depth-wise separable convolutions with the proposed localized NA block. In addition, a 100-category plant disease dataset covering 16 crops is presented. The dataset is curated, class-balanced, and made publicly available to support reproducibility and encourage further research. The proposed 9-layer CNN, with just 1.7M parameters and a size of 6.74 MB, achieved a favorable balance between accuracy, model size, and computational efficiency, compared with MobileNetV1, MobileNetV2, DenseNet121, InceptionV3, MobileViT-XXS, and EfficientViT-M0, achieving 98.97%± 0.33% accuracy on PlantVillage and 93.36%± 0.28% on the proposed dataset. The ablation study showed that the NA block improved test accuracy by approximately 2–3%, while Grad-CAM visualizations indicated more precise targeting of diseased areas in the leaf image.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物葉画像から病徴を推定する軽量CNNと注意機構を開発し、複数データセットで比較評価・アブレーションを行い、さらに100カテゴリの公開データセットを提示しているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractThis work proposes a custom Localized NA block implemented in TensorFlow/Keras that operates directly on CNN feature maps

Integrating longitudinal hyperspectral phenotyping with AI and GWAS to dissect barley waterlogging responses →

Abstract Waterlogging is a major constraint on barley productivity, yet its dynamic, multi-phase nature makes it challenging to dissect using traditional phenotyping approaches. High-throughput phenotyping (HTP) platforms address this by enabling temporal, multi-sensor imaging of large populations, but generate complex datasets that demand new analytical frameworks. Here, we imaged 230 barley accessions over 14 days of waterlogging stress and seven days of recovery using visible, chlorophyll fluorescence, and hyperspectral sensors. Explainable AI was applied to classify stress responses into early stress, late stress, and recovery phases, achieving 86% classification accuracy, and to identify the hyperspectral indices most informative for each phase. Water index (WATER1) and structure insensitive pigment index (SIPI) emerged as primary predictors of stress response. Longitudinal genome-wide association studies (GWAS), using a treatment-by-marker interaction model, identified 236 significant loci across 12 linkage disequilibrium blocks, implicating candidate genes involved in oxidative stress regulation, transcriptional control, and auxin transport. MYB transcription factors were consistently identified across all stress phases, underscoring their central role in waterlogging adaptation. To support interpretation of longitudinal GWAS results, we developed 3D-QTLVis, an interactive visualisation tool that extends Manhattan plots across time, enabling clearer identification of dynamic genomic regions underlying stress tolerance.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods長期マルチセンサー画像による水ストレス応答の表現型取得と、AIによるフェーズ分類・指標抽出が研究の中心であり、3D-QTLVisも開発している。

abstractHigh-throughput phenotyping (HTP) platforms address this by enabling temporal, multi-sensor imaging of large populations

Efficient multi-task CNN framework for joint identification of soybean leaf diseases and pesticide presence with explainable AI. →

Soybean production is significantly affected by crop diseases and improper pesticide use, which hinder effective disease management and reduce yield. In this study, we propose an efficient multi-task convolutional neural network (CNN) framework for the simultaneous detection of soybean seed diseases and pesticide presence from seed images. The model leverages a shared feature extraction backbone with task-specific output heads to learn complementary features for both disease classification and pesticide detection. A dataset of 429 soybean leaf images was preprocessed using normalization and augmentation techniques and split into training, validation, and testing sets. We evaluated three backbone architectures VGG19, MobileNetV3, and ConvNeXt within the multi-task framework. Experimental results demonstrate that the approach maintains computational efficiency suitable for real-world deployment while achieving high performance, with accuracies of 95%, 96%, and 97% for MobileNetV3, VGG19, and ConvNeXt, respectively. Additionally, explainable AI methods, such as Grad-CAM, highlight regions of focus for both tasks, making the model's decision-making process interpretable. This framework provides a practical tool for informed crop management and agricultural monitoring.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物画像から病害状態を推定するCNN手法の開発・評価が研究の中心であり、病害表現型の画像ベース推定に該当する。

abstractwe propose an efficient multi-task convolutional neural network (CNN) framework for the simultaneous detection of soybean seed diseases and pesticide presence from seed images.

PhytoScan3D: an open-source Python pipeline for batch extraction of phenotypic traits from 3D point cloud files generated by multispectral plant phenotyping sensors →

Abstract High-throughput 3D multispectral plant phenotyping platforms generate large volumes of point cloud files, but trait extraction is typically performed by sensor-bundled software whose internal algorithms are not publicly documented, which limits reproducibility and integration into custom research pipelines. Here we present PhytoScan3D, an open-source Python pipeline that extracts morphological and spectral phenotypic traits, spanning plant height, 3D leaf area, digital biomass, convex hull volume, leaf inclination, canopy geometry, NDVI, hue, and vegetation indices, from both PLY and PCD point cloud files generated by Phenospex PlantEye F500 and F600 sensors, and is portable to point clouds from any acquisition platform. PhytoScan3D was validated against HortControl (PhenoSpex) ground-truth measurements on 936 barley ( Hordeum vulgare ) pot-date observations from the growth chamber trial (20 Norwegian cultivars, 12 scan dates, Septemenr 2025 to January 2026), achieving Pearson r = 0.913 to 0.999 and ratio approximately 1.000 for Plant Height Max, 3D Leaf Area, and NDVI Average. A vectorised mesh face filtering implementation achieved a 120x speed improvement, increasing valid 3D Leaf Area coverage from 0.6% to 100% of files. Cross-format validation on 223 PlantEye F600 PCD files from the ICRISAT LeasyScan platform (four legume species: mungbean, cowpea, lima bean, and common bean; 1,523 plant observations) yielded r = 0.884 against independent cuboid annotation heights. The systematic positive bias (mean +27.2 mm, ratio = 1.44) is attributable to PhytoScan3D computing height from raw point cloud Z-range while cuboid annotations are fitted to segmented plant points only, with the offset consistent across all four species (per-species r = 0.880 to 0.888). Cross-dataset processing of 1,180 PLY files from the Crops3D benchmark (8 species, 3 acquisition methods) confirmed zero extraction errors. PhytoScan3D is available at “github.com/kovimallik/phytoscan3d” under the MIT licence and processes 1,651 files across three independent datasets in under 12 minutes on GPU hardware. Highlights PhytoScan3D is the first open-source Python pipeline for batch extraction of phenotypic traits, including plant height, 3D leaf area, digital biomass, convex hull volume, leaf inclination, NDVI, and excess green index, from both PLY and PCD point cloud files generated by Phenospex PlantEye sensors. Primary validation against HortControl ground-truth measurements on 936 barley pot-date observations achieved Pearson r = 0.913-0.999 for Plant Height Max, 3D Leaf Area, and NDVI Average. A 120x computational speedup in mesh face filtering (vectorised NumPy vs. set-based loop) increased the coverage of valid 3D Leaf Area extraction from 0.6% to 100% of files. Cross-format validation on 223 PlantEye F600 PCD files from ICRISAT LeasyScan (four legume species, 1,523 plants) achieved r = 0.884 against independent cuboid annotation heights. The systematic +27.2 mm bias reflects a methodological difference (raw Z-range vs. soil-segmented annotations), is consistent and predictable across all four species (per-species r = 0.880-0.888), and is correctable by a single linear factor. Cross-dataset processing of 1,180 PLY files from the Crops3D benchmark (8 species, 3 acquisition methods) confirmed zero extraction errors. Significant scan-unit variation was detected for Plant Height Max (F = 5.71, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.138) and Canopy Width X (F = 6.32, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.150), demonstrating the biological utility of extracted traits.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物の3D点群・マルチスペクトルデータから形態・スペクトル形質を抽出するオープンソース手法を開発し、複数データセットで技術検証・ベンチマークしているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractHere we present PhytoScan3D, an open-source Python pipeline that extracts morphological and spectral phenotypic traits

Accurate 3D recording: Integrating ground-based LiDAR data and 3D segmentation network to extract 3D traits and analyze genetics in wheat populations →

This study suggests a novel extraction pipeline based on terrestrial laser scanning across multiple growth stages to address the current deficiency of three-dimensional (3D) phenotypic traits for wheat populations derived from 3D point clouds. This study presents 3D Wheat Point-seg Net (3D WP-seg Net), a novel 3D point cloud segmentation network that incorporates an SA-CrossAttention module to address the difficulties presented by complex structures, background noise, non-uniform point distributions, and scale variations in plot-level wheat point cloud data. Plot height, canopy area, and volume are examples of common phenotypic parameters that are successfully extracted using this technique. Additionally, two new phenotypic parameters: plot extension distance and lodging angle are suggested by fusing the centroid and slice-skeletonization algorithms. A software platform called 3D Trait Analysis was created to facilitate multi-sensor 3D data processing and trait extraction. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) was then conducted using the extracted population-level traits to find potential genes linked to these new phenotypes. While the segmentation accuracies of 3D WP-seg Net achieved 93.1%, 88.3%, and 92.5% under various sensor systems, the results showed a strong correlation between the predicted and measured plot heights (R 2 = 0.954). Furthermore, four candidate genes linked to extension distance were found on chromosomes 1A, 2A, and 4A, and five putative genes controlling plot lodging angle were found on chromosomes 2D, 3A, and 7A. The multi-stage 3D phenotyping and analysis framework for wheat populations established by this study improves the accuracy of point cloud segmentation and trait quantification while offering a new and efficient method for the genetic analysis of important population-level traits.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsLiDAR点群の分割、3D形質抽出、検証、ソフトウェア基盤の開発が研究の中心であり、コムギの形態・倒伏関連形質を定量化しているため。

abstractThis study presents 3D Wheat Point-seg Net (3D WP-seg Net), a novel 3D point cloud segmentation network

PhenoSnap: An AI-Powered Web Application for Automated Specialty Crop Trait Extraction →

Manual quantification of specialty crop traits, such as flowers and fruits, is often labor-intensive, time-consuming, and inconsistent, limiting scalability and precision. We present PhenoSnap, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered web application that provides an intuitive and efficient interface for automated specialty crop trait extraction from images. PhenoSnap bridges the gap between advanced computer vision technologies and practical agricultural applications by eliminating the need for programming expertise. This ready-to-use solution can enable growers, breeders, and Extension faculty to accelerate field work and enhance decision-making related to strawberry and tomato yield estimation for breeding selections and strawberry runner management. Written by Santhi Daggubati, Xu Wang, Xue Zhou, Shubham Singh, and Jessica Chitwood-Brown, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, June 2026.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods画像から花・果実などの植物形質を自動抽出するAIウェブアプリケーションの開発・提供が中心であり、植物フェノタイピング手法およびソフトウェアとして適格。

abstractWe present PhenoSnap, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered web application that provides an intuitive and efficient interface for automated specialty crop trait extraction from images.

Attention-enhanced GNN model for fungal disease classification in spinach leaves using monospectral imaging. →

Plant leaf diseases must be detected and treated early to improve crop yield and reduce agricultural losses. However, pixel-level representations and the inability to be read limit the applicability of existing deep learning approaches to the agricultural sector. A graph neural network termed the Attention-Enhanced Graph Neural Network (AE-GNN) may explain and diagnose multi-plant leaf disease. The proposed framework models leaf pictures as a graph with nodes representing discriminative leaf areas and edges representing their spatial connection. Before creating the global context vector and classification, graph features are aggregated, and an attention weighting method is applied to refocus on disease-relevant nodes obscured by less informative background characteristics. Final disease prediction uses a multilayer perceptron classifier. A curated dataset of half-spinach and curry leaf pictures is used to assess the proposed method for fifteen illnesses and their healthy classifications. Grad-CAM-based explainable AI methods make the model predictions' most important areas clearer. The dataset and source code from this work are available on GitHub for reproducibility and openness. Experimental results reveal that the proposed AE-GNN outperforms convolutional neural networks and graph-based models in classification. Graph-structured learning, attention enhancement, and explainability create a robust and interpretable framework for multi-plant leaf disease diagnosis.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉画像から植物病害状態を分類・診断する画像解析手法を提案し、既存モデルとの比較評価と説明可能性解析を行っているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractA graph neural network termed the Attention-Enhanced Graph Neural Network (AE-GNN) may explain and diagnose multi-plant leaf disease.

Hyperspectral imaging of Marchantia →

Hyperspectral imaging is an imaging technique that allows for acquisition of high-resolution spectral information beyond that of the visible spectrum. When applied to plants, it effectively enables non-invasive characterization of physiological status and has been widely used in agricultural settings. Marchantia is a model bryophyte species whose flat morphology and visually distinct stress-response phenotypes makes it an ideal candidate for imaging studies. Here, we provide a comprehensive protocol for hyperspectral imaging for Marchantia plants, which encompasses hardware configuration, data acquisition, and computations processing. This protocol features a streamlined data processing pipeline hosted on a web-based development platform that automates 1) the segmentation of plant area into spatially distinct regions for localized analysis of intra-specimen physiological gradients, and 2) classification of plant pixels based on their spectral signatures. All results are exported as structured CSV files for ease of further analysis as desired by the user.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsマーチャンティアを対象としたハイパースペクトル撮像プロトコルと、植物領域のセグメンテーション・スペクトル分類を含む処理パイプラインを開発しており、植物の生理状態取得が中心的な方法論的貢献である。

abstractHere, we provide a comprehensive protocol for hyperspectral imaging for Marchantia plants, which encompasses hardware configuration, data acquisition, and computations processing.

Protocols for in situ continuous monitoring of water relations/potential in soil and leaf. →

Within the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum, water movement is driven by the water potential gradients between these three domains. To have a comprehensive understanding of such water relations, an examination of how plants respond to variations in soil water availability is required. The methodologies employed for measuring water potential in leaf (Ψ leaf ) and soil (Ψ soil ) have undergone a significant evolution; transitioning from qualitative assessments to the use of high-precision digital sensors over the past few decades. The present protocol aims to provide a comprehensive, step-by-step guide from the germination phase of maize and tomato plants to the installation of two sensors that continuously monitor water potential in the leaf (PSY1 psychrometer) and in the soil (TEROS 21 matric potential sensor). Additionally, we present the code for processing the raw data files in RStudio.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉の水ポテンシャルを連続測定するセンサー設置、データ処理コード、手順を中心とした植物生理形質の測定プロトコルであり、方法論的貢献が明確。

abstractThe present protocol aims to provide a comprehensive, step-by-step guide from the germination phase of maize and tomato plants to the installation of two sensors that continuously monitor water potential in the leaf (PSY1 psychrometer) and in the soil (TEROS 21 matric potential sensor).

TDD-YOLO: A novel model for precise detection of tomato diseases. →

Tomato diseases pose a significant threat to global agricultural production, often leading to substantial yield loss and major economic damage. Traditional disease detection methods rely on manual inspection, which is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive but also difficult to implement for real-time monitoring. While deep learning-based object detection techniques offer a potential alternative to manual inspection, existing models still face challenges in extracting subtle disease features, suppressing complex background interference, and in handling multi-scale disease representations in complex agricultural environments, limiting detection performance. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a novel TDD-YOLO model for precise tomato-disease detection (TDD) in complex agricultural settings. The proposed model is based on YOLOv11 with the following three main improvements: (1) a feature enhancement module is added to improve the backbone's ability to extract disease spot textures; (2) a joint attention mechanism is introduced to explicitly model cross-dimensional dependencies, effectively suppressing background interference; and (3) a feature fusion module is added to retain disease information across different scales while reducing computational costs. Experimental results, obtained on the Tomato-Village dataset (containing field-acquired images of tomato leaves with six diseases, collected in real agricultural environments, featuring complex backgrounds and varying illumination conditions) and Tomato-Disease dataset (emphasizing a greater diversity in tomato disease types along with healthy leaf samples), demonstrate that the proposed TDD-YOLO model outperforms the baseline in detection of tomato diseases (e.g., by improving mAP@50 and mAP@50:95, averaged across disease categories, by 4.1% and 6.0% on Tomato-Village and by 3.6% and 3.9% on Tomato-Disease, respectively) and state-of-the-art models (e.g., by improving the average mAP@50 and mAP@50:95, compared to the first runner-up, by 3.2% and 4.7% on Tomato-Village and by 2.4% and 2.1% on Tomato-Disease, respectively), while maintaining good parameter count and computational complexity, confirming its effectiveness and potential for practical usage in complex agricultural environments. The author-generated code and weight files are publicly available at https://github.com/LingShaQ/TDD-YOLOCode.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsトマト葉の病斑・病害状態を画像から検出するYOLOモデルを開発し、複数データセットでベースラインおよび既存モデルと比較検証しており、植物病害フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractExperimental results, obtained on the Tomato-Village dataset

Coupling of high-resolution mass spectrometer and photosynthesis system for comprehensive leaf volatile metabolite profiling. →

Background Leaf-level biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) emissions represent a major source of organic gases in the atmosphere, influencing both climate and air quality. These emissions are strongly driven by environmental perturbations, which affect individual plant- to ecosystem-level processes. Uncovering all the BVOCs and understanding how their emissions respond to altered environmental conditions provide critical insights into vegetation-driven changes in atmospheric chemistry. We developed a tandem instrumentation setup that integrates a proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometer (PTR-ToF-MS) with parts-per-trillion detection limits and a photosynthetic infrared gas exchange system for the untargeted survey of all the BVOCs. This novel system enables simultaneous, real-time monitoring of BVOC emissions and photosynthetic parameters at the leaf level, offering new opportunities to disentangle the physiological and environmental drivers of VOC release. Furthermore, we established the VOC Analysis and Processing Optimization Resource (VAPOR), an open-access software tool designed for rapid data post-processing and the analysis of the variability of hundreds of BVOCs. We assessed the performance of the tandem system under varying background conditions, using standard gas mixtures and a range of environmental factors. Results Blank emissions were substantially lower for major BVOCs (e.g., isoprene) compared to those observed in plant emissions. Despite this, the observation of background-level VOCs highlights the importance of routinely acquiring and accounting for blank measurements in analyses using the coupled instrumentation. Introduction of known VOC concentrations to the system demonstrated a linear response across different compounds with varying molecular compositions, indicating minimal gas loss regardless of chemical moieties within the coupled instrumentation. We applied the optimized system to investigate the physiological mechanisms driving BVOC emissions across different genotypes of poplar and pennycress. The high mass resolution capabilities of the PTR-ToF-MS, coupled with comprehensive VAPOR-driven data analysis, enabled the identification of several important BVOCs, including methanol and methanethiol; these BVOCs displayed substantial variation across pennycress genotypes and showed concentrations ~ 100-350% higher than the blank. Moreover, isoprene emissions varied significantly among poplar genotypes grown in different potting media. Conclusions Tandem instrumentation offers a powerful tool for profiling volatile molecular markers and elucidating their genetic and environmental underpinnings. This approach enhances our ability to predict BVOC emissions in response to genotype by environmental interactions and contributes to a deeper understanding of vegetation responses to environmental changes.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉レベルの植物揮発性物質排出と光合成パラメータを取得するタンデム計測系を開発・検証し、解析ソフトウェアも提供しているため、植物表現型取得法が中心である。

abstractWe developed a tandem instrumentation setup that integrates a proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometer (PTR-ToF-MS) with parts-per-trillion detection limits and a photosynthetic infrared gas exchange system for the untargeted survey of all the BVOCs.

Integrating deep learning and field validation into a decision support system for Northern Corn Leaf Blight management in maize →

Northern Corn Leaf Blight (NCLB; also, Turcicum Leaf Blight, TLB), caused by Exserohilum turcicum (teleomorph: Setosphaeria turcica), is one of the most destructive foliar diseases of maize worldwide, often causing severe yield losses under favorable conditions. We developed a maize-specific, web-based Decision Support System (DSS) for real-time NCLB detection and management ( https://maize-nclb.streamlit.app/ ), integrating advanced deep-learning for automated diagnosis and fungicide advisory. Among thirteen Machine-learning and deep-learning models evaluated for classification, the Visual Geometry Group 16-layer convolutional neural network (VGG16) outperformed all others, achieving 94.0% accuracy, with balanced precision, recall, and F1-score of 0.94, and an AUC-ROC of 0.93. Confusion matrix analysis revealed minimal misclassification, with only 12 errors out of 357 samples, confirming the model's high reliability in distinguishing healthy and infected plants, while Grad-CAM visualizations consistently highlighted biologically meaningful lesion regions, supporting the model's interpretability and alignment with plant pathological symptoms. Field validation of DSS-guided fungicide recommendations (Azoxystrobin 18.2% + Difenoconazole 11.4% w/w SC) demonstrated significant benefits, reducing disease incidence to 6.8% compared with 67.4% in controls, achieving 90% disease reduction, and enhancing grain yield by 35.4% (8.55 t/ha), with a favorable cost-benefit ratio of 1:2.49. Seasonal disease progression analysis further confirmed DSS effectiveness, with cumulative disease burden reduced by approximately 85% compared with untreated control. These results highlight the potential of integrating deep-learning with field-validated management strategies into a practical DSS, demonstrating its potential for precision disease management in maize.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉の病斑を画像から分類・可視化する深層学習法を開発し、野外で検証した研究であり、植物病害状態のフェノタイピング手法が中心です。

abstractintegrating advanced deep-learning for automated diagnosis and fungicide advisory

Machine learning to predict genotypes and genotype-environment interaction associated with complex traits for genomic selection. →

Genomic selection (GS) can accelerate crop breeding and enhance selection efficiency. However, accurately predicting genomic estimated breeding values (GEBVs) for complex traits and applying GS in diverse environments remains challenging. To address these issues, we developed a novel hybrid method capable of modelling gene-gene and gene-environment interactions. This method offers precise predictions of phenotypic performance for complex traits, identifies haplotypes associated with desirable phenotypes, and enables prediction of optimal haplotypes tailored to specific environments. We evaluated the approach using a dataset of 855 barley lines, with phenotypic data for grain yield and flowering time collected across multiple environments. The model incorporated 30,543 SNPs, nine soil parameters, and six daily environmental variables, achieving high prediction accuracies, with correlation coefficients of 0.93 for flowering time and 0.82 for grain yield. Our method identified 10 haplotype blocks significantly associated with flowering time and 13 blocks with grain yield, collectively accounting for over 90% of the total genetic variance. Additionally, we predicted the phenotypic effects of each haplotype and identified elite varieties carrying the most favourable haplotypes for crossing design and selection. The method also allows prediction of untested genotype × environment combinations, enabling selection of optimal genotypes for targeted environments. To facilitate its application, we developed a web-based interface (accessible at [https://penghaowang.shinyapps.io/shinygui/]), which enables breeders to identify optimal haplotypes and the varieties that carry them, streamlining the process of haplotype-based, environment-informed breeding. We note that the reverse prediction framework is currently applied on a single-trait basis and does not resolve multi-trait trade-offs such as between flowering time and yield, which remains a topic for future extensions.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods複雑形質の表現型性能を遺伝子型・環境情報から予測する新規計算手法を開発し、オオムギの収量・開花期で評価している。ウェブインターフェースも提供され、形質推定ワークフローが中心である。

abstractwe developed a novel hybrid method capable of modelling gene-gene and gene-environment interactions.

Easy to use and low cost leaf disease quantification workflow using Ilastik →

Accurate and reproducible assessment of foliar disease severity is essential for evaluating the performance of heterogeneous plant communities and understanding host-pathogen interactions. However, traditional visual scoring methods remain subjective, with limited precision, and difficult to scale in large phenotyping experiments. Here, we present a semi-automated image analysis workflow designed to quantify multiple foliar disease symptoms simultaneously on wheat flag leaves sampled from varietal mixtures. The workflow combines three methodological components: (i) a standardized protocol for leaf sampling and imaging, (ii) supervised machine learning segmentation using Random Forest implemented in Ilastik to classify multiple symptoms (powdery mildew and yellow rust), and (iii) a graphical user interface facilitating pipeline deployment by non-specialist operators. To evaluate the influence of image representation on classification performance, four color spaces (RGB, HSV, HLS, LAB) were systematically compared. The approach was validated using images of durum wheat flag leaves collected from a field experiment assessing eight-way varietal mixtures under natural fungal pressure. Cross-validation against manually annotated images demonstrated high segmentation accuracy across all symptom. Comparison among color spaces revealed only minor differences in performance. Overall, this workflow offers a cost-effective, annotation-efficient and reproducible alternative to deep learning approaches, leveraging open-source and actively maintained tools while requiring limited training data and enabling objective, reproducible and scalable disease phenotyping.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉の病害症状を画像解析で定量化するワークフローを開発し、色空間比較と手動アノテーションによる検証を行っており、植物表現型取得法が中心である。

abstractwe present a semi-automated image analysis workflow designed to quantify multiple foliar disease symptoms simultaneously

Visual Interpretation and Classification of Apple Leaf Diseases via Grad-CAM and Convolutional Neural Networks →

Apple cultivation is a crucial agricultural activity in various mountainous regions, playing a vital role in supporting the local economy and sustaining the livelihoods of farmers. Several prominent mountain districts are known for leading apple production. However, apple orchards in these areas are often threatened by numerous diseases that reduce fruit yield and quality. In this research, we suggest a machine learning-based technique to automate the detection and classification of common apple diseases based on images of apple leaves collected from various regions. Through the use of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), the system can classify diseases with 97.36% precision. For post hoc explainability, Grad-CAM is used, which highlights the important regions that influenced CNN’s decision. The automated disease detection tool provides farmers in Nepal’s rural mountain areas with an affordable real time solution to monitor orchard health, minimize crop loss, and improve apple production. The dataset used in this study is originally derived from the United States based PlantVillage dataset, which is widely used for apple leaf disease classification research. Although the dataset is not collected from Nepal, the visual characteristics of apple leaf diseases remain largely consistent across regions due to similar biological infection patterns. Therefore, the model trained on this dataset is applicable to Nepali apple cultivation environments as well. At present, a publicly available or annotated Nepali specific apple leaf disease dataset is not available, which limits region-specific training and evaluation.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsリンゴ葉画像から病害状態を分類するCNNベースの手法とGrad-CAMによる解釈を中心に扱うため、植物病害フェノタイピング手法として該当する。

abstractwe suggest a machine learning-based technique to automate the detection and classification of common apple diseases based on images of apple leaves collected from various regions.

Morphometric Properties of Olive (Olea europaea) Pits: A Dataset for Cultivar Identification and Analysis. →

Image analysis of pits and grains provide alternative routes for overcoming the invasive approach of genomic tools in the investigation of archaeological or modern plant material, which is only seldom a viable option due to the complex and laborious methodologies required. Nevertheless, any investigation of pit morphology and cultivar interpretation requires a high quality, comprehensive dataset for comparison. Such a benchmark dataset for the morphology of olive (Olea europaea) pits is presented in this paper, designed to facilitate similar research and establish a base for future investigations. The dataset was established by image analysis of pits of 18 olive cultivars that were photographed in both lateral and dorsal positions. A dedicated MATLAB® code was developed to extract the silhouettes of each pit and to calculate 16 morphometric traits of each view of the pit. Altogether, a total of 1008 photos of 504 pits of the 18 cultivars, together with their detailed morphometric description and statistical analysis are available here. These were used to test the accuracy of the dataset and the new approach in representing the different cultivars.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsオリーブ核の画像から形態形質を抽出する専用コードと、検証用ベンチマークデータセットを開発・提示しており、植物形質取得法が中心である。

abstractSuch a benchmark dataset for the morphology of olive (Olea europaea) pits is presented in this paper, designed to facilitate similar research and establish a base for future investigations.

Integrating plant phenotypic and genotypic data in the AGENT project: a BrAPI service implementation. →

Motivation The AGENT project established a network of actively cooperating European genebanks, integrating genomic and phenotypic data from accessions of wheat and barley. Due to specific storage demands for phenotypic and genotypic data, the project used separate database instances and backend technologies to manage integrated phenotypic and genotypic data. Results We discuss the challenges encountered when integrating dispersed data to serve through a single interface such as the Plant Breeding Application Programming Interface, BrAPI. We examine how the consistent mappability of genebank data to the BrAPI model can enable the implementation of effective services. The advantages of BrAPI in transparently linking distributed data entities through embedded, unique identifiers are highlighted. We present a technical solution involving a BrAPI proxy, which combines and merges separate BrAPI endpoints. Finally, we demonstrate the AGENT BrAPI implementation with an illustrative example that validates a suggested SNP for a trait from the literature by linking phenotypic, genotypic and passport data. Availability and implementation The BrAPI proxy implementation and documentation is available at the Python Package Index (https://pypi.org/project/brapi-proxy) and archived in Zenodo (doi: 10.5281/zenodo.19436445). Supplementary information A Jupyter Notebook file for the validation example using a marker-trait relationship found in the literature.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物の表現型データを含む分散データを統合・提供するBrAPIプロキシの技術実装が中心であり、表現型データ基盤・再利用可能なソフトウェアとして対象に含める。

abstractWe discuss the challenges encountered when integrating dispersed data to serve through a single interface such as the Plant Breeding Application Programming Interface, BrAPI.

Early Detection of Water Stress by Plant Electrophysiology: Machine Learning for Irrigation Management →

Purpose: Fast detection of plant stress is key to plant phenotyping, precision agriculture, and automated crop management. In particular, efficient irrigation management requires early identification of water stress to optimize resource use while maintaining crop performance. Direct physiological sensing offers the potential to detect stress responses before visible symptoms appear. Methods: In this study, we recorded electrophysiological signals from greenhouse-grown tomato plants subjected to water stress and developed a framework based on machine learning for online stress detection. The recorded time-series data were processed using a processing pipeline that includes statistical feature extraction and selection, automated machine learning or alternatively deep learning, and probability calibration. Results: Across multiple input time horizons, we found that a 30-minute look-back window strikes the best balance between rapid decision-making and classification performance. Using automated machine learning, the framework achieved classification accuracies of up to 92%, outperforming deep learning approaches. Sequential backward selection reduced the feature set while maintaining performance. Importantly, the framework detects transitions from healthy to stressed states in recordings that were not included in the training set. Conclusion: Overall, we provide a decision-support tool for farmers and establish a foundation for biofeedback-driven irrigation control to improve resource efficiency in (semi-)autonomous crop production systems.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsトマトの電気生理シグナルから水ストレス状態を推定するセンシング・機械学習パイプラインを開発し、未学習データで性能検証しているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractDirect physiological sensing offers the potential to detect stress responses before visible symptoms appear.

A Low-cost "Plant-Scanner" Platform for Automated Detection of Ustilago Maydis Infection in Maize Using Deep Learning →

Abstract Ustilago maydis is a biotrophic fungus that causes smut disease in maize, leading to tumor formation on aerial parts of the plant. While U. maydis has been a model for plant-fungal interaction studies, no tool has existed to automatically quantify infection symptoms under laboratory conditions for deep learning analysis. To address this, we developed a rotating camera system that captures videos of plants under customized lighting and shutter settings. These videos were used to train machine learning models to distinguish between healthy and infected plants. Two machine learning models have been presented. In the first approach, by employing a naive masking technique and combining classical machine learning with deep learning classifiers, the model achieved a reasonable performance, with an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.90 on the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC), displaying high sensitivity and specificity. The second approach utilizes pre-trained YOLO11 model for object detection and further classification. The YOLO11-based approach outperforms traditional methods, achieving near-perfect accuracy (AUC: 0.99-1.00), demonstrating its superiority for real-time, scalable applications. Our toolset, featuring a cost-efficient and customizable scanning platform with open building-blocks design, provides a valuable resource for unbiased disease symptom detection and scoring, with potential applications in other plant pathology studies. This point enables easy replication and adaptation by other research laboratories which makes the platform robust, scalable and practical beyond our specific application.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物の感染症状を画像から自動検出・定量する低コスト撮像プラットフォームと解析モデルを開発しており、植物表現型取得法が中心的である。

abstractwe developed a rotating camera system that captures videos of plants under customized lighting and shutter settings.

PlantaNet and PlantaNetLite: Efficient and explainable multi-crop plant disease classification via transformer benchmarking and custom lightweight CNNs. →

Plant disease diagnosis based on visual symptoms is crucial for preventing yield loss; however, deployment in practical settings remains challenging due to inter-class similarity, background noise, and limited computational resources. This study presents a plant disease classification framework evaluated on a curated multi-crop dataset aggregated from multiple publicly available repositories, comprising 51 disease and healthy classes. The dataset includes approximately 45,000 original images that were expanded through controlled augmentation during training to improve generalization. We benchmark eight ImageNet-pretrained tiny vision transformer architectures trained for up to 50 epochs. Among these, CAFormer-s18 achieved strong validation performance but with increased computational overhead. To enable efficient and computationally lightweight solutions, we design two fully customized convolutional neural networks: PlantaNetLite (1.28M parameters) and PlantaNet (2.58M parameters). After hyperparameter optimization and full 100-epoch training, PlantaNet achieved 99.37% validation accuracy and 99.66% test accuracy with a compact model size (9.85 MB) and moderate computational cost, while PlantaNetLite achieved a best validation accuracy of 99.22% under further parameter reduction. Qualitative Grad-CAM and Grad-CAM++ analyses provide insight into the regions influencing model predictions. Overall, the proposed models demonstrate competitive accuracy while maintaining computational efficiency, highlighting their potential suitability for resource-constrained deployment scenarios.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物の視覚症状から病害状態を推定する画像ベースの表現型解析手法を開発・比較し、データセット上で性能評価しているため、方法が中心的である。

abstractThis study presents a plant disease classification framework evaluated on a curated multi-crop dataset aggregated from multiple publicly available repositories

drone2report: A Configuration-Driven Multi-Sensor Batch-Processing Engine for UAV-Based Plot Analysis in Precision Agriculture →

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become indispensable tools in precision agriculture and plant phenotyping, enabling the rapid, non-destructive assessment of crop traits across space and time. Equipped with RGB, multispectral, thermal, and other sensors, UAVs provide detailed information on canopy structure, physiology, and stress responses that can guide management decisions and accelerate breeding programs. Despite these advances, the downstream processing of UAV imagery remains technically demanding. Converting orthomosaics into standardized, biologically meaningful data often requires a combination of photogrammetry, geospatial analysis, and custom scripting, which can limit reproducibility and accessibility across research groups. We present drone2report, an open-source python-based software that processes orthomosaics from UAV flights to generate vegetation indices, summary statistics, derived subimages, and text (html) reports, supporting both research and applied crop breeding needs. Alongside the basic structure and functioning of drone2report, we also present five case studies that illustrate practical applications common in UAV-/drone-phenotyping of plants: (i) thresholding to remove background noise and highlight regions of interest; (ii) monitoring plant phenotypes over time; (iii) extracting information on plant height to detect events like lodging or the falling over of spikes; (iv) integrating multiple sensors (cameras) to construct and optimize new synthetic indices; (v) integrate a trained deep learning network to implement a classification task. These examples demonstrate the tool’s ability to automate analysis, integrate heterogeneous data and models, and support reproducible computation of agronomically relevant traits. drone2report streamlines orthorectified UAV-image processing for precision agriculture by linking orthomosaics to standardized, plot-level outputs. Its modular, configuration-driven design allows transparent workflows, easy customization, and integration of multiple sensors within a unified analytical framework. By facilitating reproducible, multi-modal image analysis, drone2report lowers technical barriers to UAV-based phenotyping and opens the way to robust, data-driven crop monitoring and breeding applications.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物表現型取得のためのUAV画像処理ソフトウェアを開発し、植物高・倒伏などの形質抽出、マルチセンサー統合、再現可能な解析ワークフローを中心的に提示している。

abstractWe present drone2report, an open-source python-based software that processes orthomosaics from UAV flights to generate vegetation indices, summary statistics, derived subimages, and text (html) reports

ReMA: a residual gated multi-head attention module for MobileViT in sugarcane diseases and disease recognition. →

Purpose/significance Sugarcane is a vital global crop, critical for sugar and energy production. The accurate and timely identification of its leaf diseases is paramount for sustaining the health and stability of the sugarcane industry. While deep learning models offer promising solutions, their deployment on mobile or edge devices is often hindered by substantial model size and high computational demands. Conversely, existing lightweight models frequently compromise on feature extraction capabilities and recognition accuracy. To bridge this gap, this study develops an architecturally improved lightweight model designed to achieve both high accuracy and computational efficiency. Methods We propose the ReMA-MobileViT model, which significantly enhances feature representation by incorporating a newly designed Residual Multi-head Attention (ReMA) module. This module ingeniously leverages a multi-head attention mechanism to capture richer contextual information from diverse subspaces, while its residual connection structure effectively mitigates network degradation and facilitates robust gradient flow. The proposed model underwent rigorous training and evaluation on a comprehensive Mendeley Data repository for classification tasks. Results Experimental evaluations demonstrate that the ReMA-MobileViT model achieves an outstanding classification accuracy of 99.02% on the sugarcane leaf disease dataset, substantially surpassing existing state-of-the-art methods. An ablation study confirms the module's efficacy, showing that the ReMA-MobileViT model, integrated with the ReMA module, improved accuracy, recall, and F1-Score by 1.58, 1.76, and 1.58 percentage points, respectively, over the baseline MobileViT. Comparative analyses further illustrate ReMA-MobileViT's superior overall performance; it exceeds classic lightweight MobileNetV2 by 15.77 percentage points and the mainstream Vision Transformer by 2.96 percentage points in accuracy. Critically, ReMA-MobileViT achieves this with significantly fewer model parameters and reduced computational complexity compared to Vision Transformer, establishing a superior balance between accuracy and efficiency. Conclusion The proposed ReMA-MobileViT model offers an effective and lightweight solution for improving sugarcane leaf disease recognition accuracy, particularly in challenging complex backgrounds. Its ability to balance high accuracy with computational efficiency presents a promising technical avenue and a deployable solution for high-precision crop disease diagnosis systems on resource-constrained mobile or edge platforms.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsサトウキビ葉の病害状態を画像から認識する軽量深層学習モデルを開発し、精度・計算量・アブレーションを評価しており、植物表現型取得・判定手法が中心である。

abstractWe propose the ReMA-MobileViT model, which significantly enhances feature representation by incorporating a newly designed Residual Multi-head Attention (ReMA) module.

MVOS_HSI: A Python Library for Preprocessing Agricultural Crop Hyperspectral Data →

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) allows researchers to study plant traits non-destructively. By capturing hundreds of narrow spectral bands per pixel, it reveals details about plant biochemistry and stress that standard cameras miss. However, processing this data is often challenging. Many labs still rely on loosely organized collections of lab-specific MATLAB or Python scripts, which makes workflows difficult to share and results difficult to reproduce. MVOS_HSI is an open-source Python library that provides an end-to-end workflow for processing leaf-level HSI data. The software handles everything from calibrating raw ENVI files to detecting and clipping individual leaves based on multiple vegetation indices (NDVI, CIRedEdge and GCI). It also includes tools for data augmentation to create training-time variations for machine learning and utilities to visualize spectral profiles. MVOS_HSI can be used as an importable Python library or run directly from the command line. The code and documentation are available on GitHub. By consolidating these common tasks into a single package, MVOS_HSI helps researchers produce consistent and reproducible results in plant phenotyping

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉レベルHSIの校正・葉検出・切り出しを含む再現可能な植物表現型解析用ソフトウェアであり、手法が中心。

abstractMVOS_HSI is an open-source Python library that provides an end-to-end workflow for processing leaf-level HSI data.

A conversational multi-agent AI system for automated plant phenotyping. →

Plant phenotyping increasingly relies on (semi-)automated image-based analysis workflows to improve its accuracy and scalability. However, many existing solutions remain overly complex, difficult to reimplement and maintain, and pose high barriers for users without substantial computational expertise. To address these challenges, we introduce PhenoAssistant: a pioneering AI-driven system that streamlines plant phenotyping via intuitive natural language interaction. PhenoAssistant leverages a large language model to orchestrate a curated toolkit supporting tasks including automated phenotype extraction, data visualisation and automated model training. We validate PhenoAssistant through several representative case studies and a set of evaluation tasks. By lowering technical hurdles, PhenoAssistant underscores the promise of AI-driven methodologies to democratising AI adoption in plant biology.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物表現型抽出を自然言語で自動化するAIシステムの開発であり、ツールとワークフローが研究の中心です。代表的ケーススタディと評価タスクによる検証も行っています。

abstractwe introduce PhenoAssistant: a pioneering AI-driven system that streamlines plant phenotyping via intuitive natural language interaction.

Computational method to analyze linear developmental gradients reveals specific metabolite enrichment patterns in stress-tolerant maize. →

Metabolic processes are essential for regulating and maintaining developmental transitions. However, the distinct metabolite-driven mechanisms that are crucial for development remain poorly characterized due to inherent challenges in measuring their localization and function in situ. We applied desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging (DESI-MSI) to generate near single-cell resolution (50-80 µm) images of metabolites in the maize root tip, which has a well-characterized longitudinal developmental gradient. We developed a new computational tool, called Developmental Imaging Mass Spectrometry Pipeline for Linear Evaluation (DIMPLE), which processes mass signatures along linear gradients and clusters metabolites based on their developmental enrichment patterns. We employed this method to compare developmental enrichment of metabolites in Oaxacan Green, a salt-resilient maize variety, to B73, which is salt sensitive. DIMPLE uncovers specific differences in individual mass signatures and overall enrichment patterns between these varieties. Further characterization of these differences revealed meristem enrichment of D-erythrose, a metabolite that can improve stress tolerance in maize. Overall, DIMPLE enables comprehensive and rapid analysis of metabolite patterns along a linear gradient, informing biological hypotheses related to plant growth and stress response.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物根端の発達勾配に沿った代謝物分布を画像化・解析する計算ツールを開発しており、植物の発達状態やストレス応答に関わる表現型抽出が研究の中心である。

abstractWe developed a new computational tool, called Developmental Imaging Mass Spectrometry Pipeline for Linear Evaluation (DIMPLE), which processes mass signatures along linear gradients and clusters metabolites based on their developmental enrichment patterns.

An artificial neural network-based deep learning model to predict combined stress impact and interaction in plants. →

Premise Plants are frequently exposed to combinations of abiotic and biotic stresses that pose a greater threat to yield and productivity than individual stresses. However, knowledge of the impact of many stress combinations in numerous plants is limited due to the lack of experimental data, which could take decades to generate. To overcome this limitation, we utilized existing literature data from various plant species and stress combinations to derive biological inferences, thereby gaining a comprehensive understanding of plant responses through a computational tool. Methods Public databases were used to gather literature on the impact of various abiotic and biotic stress combinations. Then, a composite artificial neural network (ANN)-based multi-target classification and regression deep learning model was developed using machine learning algorithms. Results The model predicted the impact of stress interactions in plants, including the morphological parameters affected and percentage changes in those parameters, with an overall accuracy of 76.33%. Predicted reductions in yield were validated in rice under combined drought and heat stress. Discussion The ANN-based model developed in this study is a valuable resource for plant researchers seeking to understand the impact of stress combinations. The tool can make use of multivariate and complex combined stress datasets.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物のストレス応答として形態形質や収量変化を予測するANNベースの計算ツールを開発し、イネで予測を検証しており、表現型推定が中心である。

abstracta composite artificial neural network (ANN)-based multi-target classification and regression deep learning model was developed using machine learning algorithms

Coleaf, an image recognition-driven approach facilitates the genome-wide association study with tea leaf morphology. →

Leaf morphology in tea plants (Camellia sinensis L.) profoundly influences tea quality and agronomic value, yet its genetic basis remains elusive due to labor-intensive phenotyping, foliage architecture, and ecological sensitivity of traits. Moreover, traditional methods forfeit quantitative color gradients and population-level morphological complexity. To address this challenge, we developed coleaf, an open-source image recognition-based software that demonstrated 97.6% accuracy over conventional ImageJ measurements, while offering higher efficiency and color hues quantification. We then estimated 7 key morphological traits focusing on leaves from a collection of ~ 4,200 mature leaves and ~ 5,000 bud-leaf samples across 167 genetically diverse tea accessions by coleaf. While classical understanding suggests leaf shape differentiation between two varieties in genus sinensis assamica (CSA) and sinensis (CSS), our phenotypic clustering revealed incomplete congruence with phylogenetic relationships, suggesting the presence of additional genetic or environmental modulators beyond population divergence. Furthermore, we integrated phenotypic data with whole-genome resequencing for multi-model genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Candidate genes associated with leaf architecture were involved in plant development (e.g., CsFAS2), cell division and elongation (e.g., CsFIP1), and cellular morphogenesis (e.g., CsRLK), whereas those associated with leaf color, regulated pigment accumulation (e.g., ABC transporters, CsMYB113). In conclusion, this study establishes a standardized computational framework validating automated image recognition for plant leaf phenomics. The end-to-end framework from high-throughput phenotyping to gene discovery provides critical genetic targets for tea breeding, demonstrating transformative potential in accelerating the genetic improvement of tea plants.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods茶葉形態の画像認識ソフトウェアを開発・検証し、高スループットな形質抽出フレームワークとして適用しており、植物フェノタイピング手法が研究の中心である。

abstractwe developed coleaf, an open-source image recognition-based software that demonstrated 97.6% accuracy over conventional ImageJ measurements

Robust quantification of multiplexed fluorescent protein-based biosensors in plant tissues →

Summary Genetically encoded biosensors are one of the essential tools in biological research. They enable visualization of molecules of interest from the subcellular level to entire organism level in vivo and can be used to monitor presence of small molecules, gene expression, protein activity, and protein degradation. However, multiplexing fluorescent biosensors in plants is notoriously difficult due to signal bleed-through and strong autofluorescence from chlorophyll. In this study, we investigated the potential of multiplexing biosensors based on the selection of reporter fluorescent proteins. We characterized the emission spectra, fluorescence lifetimes, and relative brightness of diverse fluorescent proteins in plant leaves. We show that selected proteins exhibit comparable brightness, supporting their use in co-expression experiments and reliable quantification of individual signals. To separate three overlapping signals, we applied two different linear unmixing approaches and compared them to results obtained without unmixing. We identified channel separation unmixing approach as the most suitable for biosensors. Additionally, we show how unmixing with the selected approach can be applied to separate autofluorescence and five fluorescent proteins. We further validated this approach in virus-infected cells by following organelle dynamics in vivo . Finally, we demonstrate the feasibility of high-throughput segmentation and quantification with a custom MATLAB workflow for nuclei, chloroplasts, and cytoplasm signal analysis. Overall, our work demonstrates that biosensors can be multiplexed, even when their emission spectra overlap. Significance statement Multiplexing genetically encoded biosensors in plants has been limited by overlapping fluorescent signals and strong autofluorescence. This study presents an optimized framework for linear unmixing and provides a MATLAB-based organelle segmentation tool, allowing precise quantification of multiple fluorescent reporters in vivo and advancing real-time visualization of complex cellular processes in plants.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物組織における蛍光シグナルの分離、検出、セグメンテーション、定量化手法を開発・比較・検証しており、植物の細胞・細胞小器官状態を取得する方法が中心である。

abstractTo separate three overlapping signals, we applied two different linear unmixing approaches and compared them to results obtained without unmixing.

EmbryoTempoFormer: clip-based developmental tempo inference from zebrafish brightfield time-lapse microscopy →

ABSTRACT Nominal hours post fertilization (hpf) are widely used to index zebrafish embryogenesis, yet under condition shifts—such as temperature change, genetic perturbation, or environmental stress—nominal time can decouple from true developmental progression. In such settings, biologically meaningful variation is better described as a systematic change in developmental tempo rather than a simple temporal offset. Here we introduce an embryo-resolved framework that treats developmental tempo as the primary quantity of interest in brightfield time-lapse imaging. We present EmbryoTempoFormer (ETF), a clip-based CNN–Transformer that predicts developmental progression from short time-lapse clips and is trained with a within-embryo temporal-difference consistency regularizer to promote temporally coherent trajectories. Crucially, we couple model predictions with an embryo-level inference and statistical workflow: temporally correlated clip-level outputs are aggregated into interpretable embryo-level tempo and stability readouts, and cross-condition effects are quantified using embryo-bootstrap confidence intervals with embryos—rather than frames or clips—as independent units, avoiding pseudo-replication. Using temperature perturbation as a representative domain shift, we robustly quantify condition-induced changes in global developmental dynamics and show that developmental delay predominantly manifests as reduced developmental tempo. This framework enables statistically principled, high-throughput phenotyping for perturbation screens, drug assays, and environmental stress studies. HIGHLIGHTS Clip-based CNN–Transformer predicts developmental time from brightfield time-lapse microscopy. Within-embryo temporal-difference consistency improves trajectory self-consistency. Embryo-level anchored tempo slopes enable interpretable cross-condition comparisons. Reproducible pipeline via code, scripts, and a Zenodo bundle with embryo-level inference Graphical abstract

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsゼブラフィッシュ胚の発生進行・テンポをタイムラプス画像から推定するCNN–Transformerと、胚単位の統計的推定ワークフローを開発しており、表現型取得・抽出手法が中心である。ただし植物ではなく動物対象のため、この植物フェノタイピング索引では除外すべき内容。

abstractHere we introduce an embryo-resolved framework that treats developmental tempo as the primary quantity of interest in brightfield time-lapse imaging.

A workflow for absolute apoplastic pH assessment during live cell imaging in plant roots →

Abstract Background Apoplastic pH is a central regulator of plant growth, development, and environmental adaptation, influencing cell expansion, nutrient uptake, and extracellular signaling. Many studies have successfully used HPTS to monitor relative changes in apoplastic pH in plants. At the same time, research increasingly targets pH-dependent biochemical and biophysical processes. Many enzymatic activities, ion binding events, and receptor–ligand interactions depend on defined proton concentrations. Accordingly, the development of reliable approaches to measure absolute pH in living tissues is gaining importance. Methods A calibration-based workflow was developed to enable quantitative assessment of absolute apoplastic pH using ratiometric HPTS imaging. The approach integrates a simplified two-point normalization strategy with an in-vitro derived sigmoidal calibration model, thereby minimizing the need for extensive in-vivo calibration curves. Confocal imaging was performed using HPTS excited at two wavelengths followed by ratiometric image processing. Data analysis is supported by a custom Fiji plugin, Ratio2pH, which converts ratiometric images into pixel-resolved maps of absolute pH. Results In vitro characterization revealed a robust, non-linear relationship between normalized HPTS ratios and pH, enabling accurate pH estimation within the physiologically relevant range of pH 5.0–7.0. When applied in-vivo to Arabidopsis thaliana roots, the workflow yielded extracellular pH estimates consistent with the pH of the incubation medium and detected reproducible pH shifts in response to pharmacological treatments. Conclusions This workflow enables reproducible, spatially resolved measurement of absolute apoplastic pH in living plant tissues. By combining a simplified calibration strategy with accessible image analysis tools, it facilitates quantitative extracellular pH measurements and their integration into biochemical and biophysical analyses.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods生きた植物組織の絶対アポプラストpHを画像から定量する校正ワークフローを開発・検証し、Fijiプラグインも提供しているため、植物状態の取得法が中心である。

abstractA calibration-based workflow was developed to enable quantitative assessment of absolute apoplastic pH using ratiometric HPTS imaging.

Efficient and accurate tiller counting of hand-collected samples using images of straw bundles. →

We present a novel method for accurately counting winter wheat tillers based on RGB images from hand-collected samples. An efficient sample preparation method assembles wheat tillers into bundles from which individual tillers are robustly detected automatically, using classical image analysis. A custom-made user interface ('TillerCounter' program) allows adjusting the automatic detections interactively, which leads to highly accurate tiller counts comparable to the ground truth obtained by manual counting. The key contributions of our work include:1.An efficient method for imaging straw tillers based on bundle assembly.2.An extensive study of the obtained image quality and comparison with the ground truth data from manual counting.3.Demonstration of the approach's high accuracy using correlation analysis (Pearson correlation coefficient R = 0.973 compared to ground truth) and error analysis (root mean squared relative errors below 5 %).

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods小麦分げつ数という植物形態形質を、画像取得・古典的画像解析・専用ソフトウェアで自動推定し、手動計数を基準に精度検証しているため、フェノタイピング手法が中心です。

abstractWe present a novel method for accurately counting winter wheat tillers based on RGB images from hand-collected samples.

Orangutan : An R Package for Analyzing and Visualizing Phenotypic Data in the Context of Species Descriptions and Population Comparisons. →

Phenotypic characters have long been central to species diagnosis and remain indispensable even in the age of genomics. However, phenotypic datasets are often complex-spanning dozens of traits of varying types and units, with correlated variables and unbalanced sampling-posing challenges for robust, reproducible analysis. Existing software solutions are fragmented, usually requiring labor-intensive workflows across multiple tools and manual steps, which undermines reproducibility and hinders comparisons across studies. To address these methodological and practical challenges, I introduce Orangutan , an R package designed to provide a reproducible, easy-to-implement framework for comparing groups using mensural and meristic data. Orangutan integrates statistical analysis and visualization for species diagnosis and population comparisons within a single workflow. The package streamlines the identification of diagnostic, nonoverlapping traits between species, while enabling rigorous assessment of both individual and multivariate trait differences in overlapping traits. Core features include optional allometric correction to remove size effects, optional outlier removal, automated selection of appropriate univariate tests with post hoc comparisons, and integrated multivariate analyses. All outputs, including tables and publication-ready figures, are generated with minimal coding, ensuring accessibility and standardization. Empirical validation with real-world datasets-including animal and plant species-demonstrates that Orangutan robustly identifies diagnostic traits, reveals both subtle and clear group differences, and achieves high classification accuracy with phenotypic data alone. By automating and unifying key analytical steps, Orangutan promotes reproducibility, transparency, and efficiency in phenotypic research. This package could empower researchers in taxonomy, ecology, and evolutionary biology to adopt quantitative good practices for species diagnoses, facilitating comparative studies and advancing methodological standards in morphological data analysis. Orangutan is freely available as open-source software with comprehensive documentation to facilitate broad adoption.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物を含む表現型データの解析・可視化を統合するRパッケージを開発し、実データで検証しているため、植物表現型解析ソフトウェアとして方法論が中心である。

abstractI introduce Orangutan , an R package designed to provide a reproducible, easy-to-implement framework for comparing groups using mensural and meristic data.

PlantCV v4: Image analysis software for high‐throughput plant phenotyping →

Abstract PlantCV is an open‐source Python project aimed at developing tools to address a range of image‐based, plant phenotyping questions. PlantCV has been used for more than 10 years to automate trait collection from image data, and the newest release, PlantCV version 4, continues to lower the barrier to entry for users without substantial coding experience through extensive example use‐case tutorials and simplified installation. In addition to usability, we document added functionality since the release of PlantCV v2, including support for more image types such as fluorescence, thermal, and hyperspectral data. Finally, we describe the development of a new subpackage focused on morphological trait measurements like leaf angle, and demonstrate its utility as compared to more manual methods of data collection.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsPlantCV v4は、画像から植物形質を自動抽出するオープンソースソフトウェアの開発・機能拡張・比較評価を主題としており、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractPlantCV is an open‐source Python project aimed at developing tools to address a range of image‐based, plant phenotyping questions.

Swin-HViT for Accurate Early-Stage Crop Disease Diagnosis Using a Hybrid Transformer Model →

Abstract Agriculture plays a pivotal role in global economic growth, yet it faces significant challenges from pests and crop diseases. Early detection is crucial for preventing large-scale crop losses and ensuring food security. This study introduces a hybrid transformer model, Swin-HViT, which integrates the strengths of a vision transformer (ViT) and a Swin transformer to accurately predict crop diseases. While ViT captures global image features, the Swin Transformer excels at extracting fine-grained local details. Evaluated on two benchmark datasets, Corn and PlantDoc, our model achieved accuracies of 98.81% and 81.81%, respectively, surpassing recent works. Here, we demonstrate the effectiveness of combining complementary transformer architectures to improve disease identification in diverse agricultural settings. The code, data and the hybrid model are available at https://github.com/hema2107/Swin-HViT.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物画像から病害状態を推定するハイブリッド画像解析モデルを開発し、2つのベンチマークデータセットで評価しており、病害フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractThis study introduces a hybrid transformer model, Swin-HViT, which integrates the strengths of a vision transformer (ViT) and a Swin transformer to accurately predict crop diseases.

Plant Leaf Disease Classification Using Convolutional Neural Network Based on Digital Images →

Monitoring plant health is an important factor in maintaining agricultural productivity. Manual identification of leaf diseases requires expert knowledge and is prone to errors due to visual similarities among disease symptoms. This study aims to develop a plant leaf disease classification system based on digital images using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) approach. The dataset consists of plant leaf images representing three disease classes: Corn–Common rust, Potato–Early blight, and Tomato–Bacterial spot. Prior to model training, the images undergo preprocessing steps including image resizing and pixel normalization. The performance of the CNN model is evaluated using a testing dataset that is not involved in the training process, employing accuracy, confusion matrix, precision, recall, and F1-score as evaluation metrics. Experimental results show that the proposed model achieves a test accuracy of 95.56%, with balanced performance across all disease classes. In addition to quantitative evaluation, the trained model is implemented in a Streamlit-based application, allowing users to upload plant leaf images and obtain disease classification results interactively. The findings indicate that the CNN-based approach is effective for plant leaf disease classification and has potential application as an early decision-support system for plant health monitoring.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物葉の画像から病害状態を推定するCNN分類法を開発し、独立テストデータで性能評価しているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractThis study aims to develop a plant leaf disease classification system based on digital images using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) approach.

OpenEar: an ultra-affordable, high-throughput, and accurate maize ear phenotyping system. →

Crop phenotyping of important agronomic traits in field conditions at single-plant resolution has long been a major bottleneck in both genetic analysis (e.g. large-scale association/linkage analysis) and breeding applications (e.g. genomic prediction/selection). Despite growing interest, ultra-affordable, high-throughput and accurate phenotyping tools for maize ears remain limited. Here, we developed OpenEar, an open source, low-cost phenotyping system that combines a DIY maize ear imaging platform with a deep learning-based end-to-end phenotypic data extraction pipeline. The imaging platform is composed of 3D-printed parts and electronics components easily available from local retailers to perform high-quality 360° surface scanning of maize ears. Our pipeline first employs CNN-based models to identify normally-developed ears suitable for phenotyping, followed by reliable segmentation of ears and ear surface projection images by YOLOv11-based models, from which ten key traits are subsequently extracted. OpenEar demonstrates reliable agreement with manual measurements across a diverse set of ear- and kernel-related traits, including ear length ( R 2 = 0.972), ear diameter ( R 2 = 0.905), ear volume ( R 2 = 0.976), ear weight ( R 2 = 0.878), kernel number ( R 2 = 0.98), kernel row number ( R 2 = 0.888), kernel number per row ( R 2 = 0.852), kernel thickness ( R 2 = 0.705), kernel width ( R 2 = 0.515), and thousand kernel weight ( R 2 = 0.605). A user-friendly graphical interface is developed for manual inspection of ears after computer annotation. Manually annotated ear videos and images are publicly released as a resource for the crop phenomics community. Our study highlights the potential of DIY-based low-cost solutions to make phenotyping more accessible in crop genetic analysis and breeding.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsトウモロコシ穂の画像取得・深層学習による形質抽出システムを開発し、手動測定との一致を検証しており、植物フェノタイピング手法が研究の中心です。

abstractwe developed OpenEar, an open source, low-cost phenotyping system that combines a DIY maize ear imaging platform with a deep learning-based end-to-end phenotypic data extraction pipeline.

Deep learning enables quantitative subcellular analysis of plant-microbe interfaces →

Specialized host-microbe interfaces are central to cellular interactions in plants. Intracellular structures such as haustoria formed by filamentous pathogens mediate nutrient exchange and effector delivery to host cells. Despite their biological importance, the lack of quantitative frameworks has largely confined the study of these interfaces to qualitative observations, limiting our ability to compare infection strategies, cellular responses, and spatial organization across cells and tissues. Here, we present HFinder , a deep learning-based framework for automated detection, segmentation, and quantitative analysis of plant-microbe interfaces in confocal images. Using an object-centric deep learning approach, HFinder enables robust identification of haustoria, microbial hyphae, and host organelles across diverse imaging conditions and pathosystems. We demonstrate that this framework supports quantitative analyses of subcellular processes at host-microbe interfaces, including effector secretion, perturbation of host cellular processes, and immune receptor accumulation at haustoria. HFinder provides a practical and scalable solution for the systematic digitalization of plant infection imaging data and establishes a general framework for quantitative studies of cellular dynamics at host-microbe contact zones.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物と微生物の界面を共焦点画像から自動検出・分割し、ハウストリア等を定量解析する深層学習手法が中心であり、植物感染状態の画像ベース表現型解析に該当する。

abstractwe present HFinder , a deep learning-based framework for automated detection, segmentation, and quantitative analysis of plant-microbe interfaces in confocal images.

High-Resolution Leaf Image Sequences with Geometric Alignment for Dynamic Phenotyping of Foliar Diseases. →

Abstract Time-resolved phenotyping of disease symptoms enables dissection of resistance mechanisms and improves diagnosis, but acquiring phenotypic data at satisfactory scale remains challenging. Advances in imaging and image processing have improved measurement precision, robustness, and throughput, but further improvements are needed for practical application. We present a data set comprising 12,520 high-resolution (~0.03 mm/pixel) RGB images representing 1,032 time series of wheat leaves with developing disease symptoms. All images are geometrically aligned with a median precision of 0.16 mm (≈5 pixels). The dataset includes transformation matrices, symptom segmentation masks, metadata on treatments, weather, crop phenology, and disease occurrence, and a lightweight Python toolkit for loading, aligning, inspecting, and editing image sequences. These resources enable detailed investigation of leaf-level disease dynamics such as lesion, pustule, and fruiting body emergence rates, lesion growth, and dynamic interactions of disease development with spatial and environmental contexts. They offer a broad basis for developing improved methods for image alignment and symptom detection, segmentation, and tracking, possibly by tackling these connected challenges within a single end-to-end framework.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods葉の病徴を対象とした高解像度時系列画像データセットで、幾何位置合わせ、病徴セグメンテーション、追跡用ツールを提供しており、植物病害表現型の取得・解析基盤が中心である。

abstractWe present a data set comprising 12,520 high-resolution (~0.03 mm/pixel) RGB images representing 1,032 time series of wheat leaves with developing disease symptoms.

Beyond the clipboard: data collection with GridScore NEXT. →

BACKGROUND: Accurate acquisition of phenotypic data is critical for cataloguing and utilising genetic variation in cultivated crops, landraces, and their wild relatives. The collection of phenotypic data using handwritten notes often introduces errors which can and should be avoided. Electronic data collection is crucial for ensuring error prevention and data standardisation and thus ensuring high-quality, reliable data. IMPLEMENTATION: This paper describes the development of GridScore NEXT, a new plant phenotyping application that significantly advances the state of the art for collecting field trial data in plant genetics, pre-breeding and crop improvement research. Building on its predecessor, GridScore, the development of GridScore NEXT was driven by real life, in the field interactions with expert user groups across a number of crops. This iterative design methodology allowed the development and testing of new features. Collaborators from the 'Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods and Development' (BOLD) project, focusing on crops including rice, grasspea, and alfalfa, along with barley, potato, vegetable and blueberry teams, provided invaluable insights through training sessions and interviews and in the field use of the application. RESULTS: Key improvements to GridScore NEXT include enhanced data collection tools, supporting individual plant phenotyping within plots and enabling new data types such as GPS coordinates and image traits. GridScore NEXT provides customisable user defined validation rules to help prevent errors and incorporates barcode scanning for accurate, efficient data capture. The application offers an increased toolbox of data visualizations over its predecessor including heatmaps and statistical box plots, which aid in identifying potential data issues and understanding trial performance in the field. GridScore NEXT is cross-platform and can operate without an internet connection, making it ideal for field use in remote areas. Its adoption has led to standardisation of methods, significant error reduction, and the timely sharing of data, enabling quicker decision-making in pre-breeding and characterisation experiments. GridScore NEXT is available under an open-source (Apache 2.0) licence and freely available to all with no restrictions. It offers self-hosting options for enhanced data security and privacy. GridScore NEXT shows broad applicability across a diverse range of not only plant phenotyping experiments, but any experiment that requires the collection of accurate data.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物表現型データ収集アプリケーションの開発と検証が論文の中心であり、個体表現型や画像形質を含む圃場データ取得を支援するため、対象範囲に含める。

abstractThis paper describes the development of GridScore NEXT, a new plant phenotyping application that significantly advances the state of the art for collecting field trial data in plant genetics, pre-breeding and crop improvement research.

The Tonoplast Topology Index-a new metric for describing vacuole organization. →

Background The plant vacuole arises by orchestrated interplay of membrane trafficking, cytoskeletal rearrangements and a variety of signaling pathways. In the root, the characteristic large central vacuole develops by endomembrane reorganization occurring mainly in the transition zone. The vacuole's bounding membrane-the tonoplast-can be visualized in vivo using fluorescent protein markers, allowing for quantitative analysis of confocal microscopy images. Tonoplast organization can thus serve as a sensitive indicator of changes to any of the processes involved in vacuole biogenesis. The Vacuolar Morphology Index (VMI) is widely accepted as a quantitative measure of vacuole structure. However, this metric has two drawbacks-it only reflects the size of the largest vacuolar compartment (missing therefore possible differences in the organization of smaller compartments), and its determination is labor intensive, limiting its use on large datasets. Results We developed an alternative metric for describing vacuole organization, named the Tonoplast Topology Index (TTI), which overcomes the above-mentioned shortcomings of the VMI. We compared the performance of our protocol with VMI on a simulated dataset and on real data. To validate the methods´ performance, we used it to confirm the previously reported differences in vacuole shape and size between Arabidopsis thaliana roots grown on the surface of an agar medium compared to those embedded inside the agar. Both VMI and TTI could efficiently detect the relatively subtle changes in vacuole organization depending on the position of the root in the agar, and provided correlated results. However, only TTI produced data with close to normal value distribution, simplifying subsequent statistical evaluation. Conclusions We present the protocol for TTI determination as a two-stage semi-automated procedure involving microscopic image analysis employing an ImageJ macro and subsequent processing of numeric data in the Jupyter Notebook environment, together with benchmarking image data. Since this implementation is freeware-based, platform-independent and (relatively) user-friendly, we hope it will find its use as a high throughput, added value alternative to the VMI metric.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物液胞構造を定量化する新規指標と半自動画像解析プロトコルを開発し、シミュレーションおよび実画像で既存指標と比較・検証しているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

abstractWe developed an alternative metric for describing vacuole organization, named the Tonoplast Topology Index (TTI)

Chat Demeter: a multi-agent system for plant disease diagnosis integrating CNN-transformer models →

Plant diseases remain a significant challenge in global agricultural production. Achieving efficient and accurate disease detection is essential for reducing crop losses, controlling agricultural costs, and improving yields. As agriculture rapidly advances toward digitalization and intelligent transformation, the application of artificial intelligence technologies has become a key pathway to enhancing industrial competitiveness. In this study, Chat Demeter, a multi-agent system for plant disease diagnosis based on deep learning. The system captures real-time leaf images through camera devices. It employs a CNN-Transformer model to perform instance segmentation and object detection, thereby enabling automatic identification of diseased leaves and classification of disease types. To enhance interactivity and practical value, the system incorporates a natural language interface, allowing users to upload images and receive automated diagnostic results and treatment suggestions. Experimental results demonstrate that the system achieves an accuracy of 99.50% and an AUC o f 99.91% on the validation dataset, highlighting its superior performance. Overall, Chat Demeter provides an effective tool for crop health monitoring and disease intervention, while offering a feasible pathway and developmental direction for integrating and optimizing future agricultural multi-agent systems.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物葉の画像から病葉をセグメンテーション・分類する診断システムが研究の中心であり、植物病害状態の画像ベース表現型計測に該当する。

abstractChat Demeter, a multi-agent system for plant disease diagnosis based on deep learning.

Web-Based Sustainable Detection and Treatment Recommendation System for Wheat Plant Diseases Using Convolutional Neural Networks. →

Wheat, being a major staple crop worldwide, is often attacked by rust diseases, which cause severe yield losses. The early detection and diagnosis of fungal infections, yellow rust, and brown rust are critical in minimizing their consequences. A web-based system based on a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) was developed for the quick identification and classification of wheat plant diseases. The diseases that we examine in wheat plants are brown rust (BR) and yellow rust (YR), and healthy plants are classified in the third category. A dataset of labeled images of YR, BR, and healthy wheat plants was used to train the CNN. The model achieved a remarkable 96% classification accuracy. In addition to disease diagnosis, a recommendation module that gives advice on proper treatment based on disease names or symptoms is also provided. This twofold functionality allows for timely disease management and identification and facilitates the treatment of other wheat diseases besides rust diseases. Integrating the trained CNN model into an intuitive web application makes it user-friendly for end users, notably farmers, to have a practical tool in protecting wheat crops.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods小麦植物画像から病害状態を分類するCNN手法を開発・評価しており、植物病害表現型の取得・推定が中心。治療推薦機能もあるが、画像ベース病害診断が主要な技術的貢献である。

abstractA web-based system based on a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) was developed for the quick identification and classification of wheat plant diseases.

An attention enhanced CNN ensemble for interpretable and accurate cotton leaf disease classification. →

Precise and timely identification of cotton leaf diseases is essential for sustaining crop yield and quality, yet manual inspection remains time-consuming, labor-intensive, and prone to error. Existing automated approaches are limited by insufficient dataset diversity, inconsistent evaluation practices, limited use of explainable AI (XAI), and high computational cost. To address these challenges, we propose an attention-enhanced CNN ensemble, namely CottonLeafNet, which integrates lightweight convolutional neural networks for accurate cotton leaf disease classification across two publicly available datasets. CottonLeafNet achieves state-of-the-art performance, obtaining 98.33% accuracy, a macro F1-score of 0.9833, Cohen's kappa of 0.9800, a mean PPV of 0.9838, and an NPV of 0.9967 on Dataset D1, with an inference time of 0.51 s per image. On Dataset D2, it reaches 99.43% accuracy, a macro F1-score of 0.9942, Cohen's kappa of 0.9924, a mean PPV of 0.9943, and an NPV of 0.9981, with a 0.40 s inference time. Moreover, a unified eight-class dataset created by merging both datasets yields a test accuracy of 99.08%. Robustness analysis under artificially induced class imbalance further confirms the model's stability, with consistently strong macro F1-scores. To evaluate the generalization capability of the proposed CottonLeafNet, we conducted cross-dataset experiments, and the results indicate that the model maintains moderate performance even when trained and tested on different datasets. Gradient-Weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) visualizations demonstrate that CottonLeafNet reliably attends to disease-relevant regions, enhancing interpretability. Finally, real-time feasibility is validated through a web-based deployment achieving ≈1 s inference per image. These results establish CottonLeafNet as an accurate, robust, interpretable, and computationally efficient solution for automated cotton leaf disease diagnosis.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods綿花葉の画像から病害状態を推定する分類手法を開発・評価しており、植物病害フェノタイピングが中心的である。

abstractwe propose an attention-enhanced CNN ensemble, namely CottonLeafNet, which integrates lightweight convolutional neural networks for accurate cotton leaf disease classification across two publicly available datasets.

When to cluster phenotypic data? A simulation-based framework to guide decisions in agrobiodiversity research →

Abstract Phenotypic clustering is a cornerstone of population structure analysis in agrobiodiversity research, especially for neglected and underutilized species (NUS) where genomic data are scarce. However, there is currently no formal method to determine whether a given dataset contains sufficient biological signal to justify clustering, leading to potential overinterpretation of spurious patterns. To address this, we introduce a signal-first diagnostic framework. This framework mandates the assessment of phenotypic differentiation prior to any unsupervised classification, providing clear, data-driven thresholds to decide if clustering is statistically meaningful. We developed this framework through a large-scale, empirically-grounded simulation study. Using realistic trait architectures calibrated on fonio ( Digitaria exilis ), we evaluated 11 clustering algorithms across a continuous gradient of phenotypic differentiation (Pst = 0.05–0.85). Our results establish quantitative detectability thresholds: under the calibrated trait architecture, clustering fails to recover meaningful structure below Pst ≈ 0.30, a range typical for many NUS. Even the best-performing algorithm required Pst > 0.47 for moderate accuracy. We further demonstrate that internal validation metrics (e.g., Silhouette score) are unreliable under weak differentiation, often misleadingly suggesting robust clusters. The proposed framework shifts the analytical paradigm from algorithm selection to signal assessment. We provide practical guidelines and an openly available simulation template to help researchers implement this workflow, thereby supporting more reliable diversity assessments, core collection design, and germplasm management decisions in data-scarce systems.

Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物の表現型データを対象に、クラスタリングの妥当性を事前評価する統計的診断フレームワークをシミュレーションで開発しており、再利用可能な表現型解析手法が中心である。

abstractTo address this, we introduce a signal-first diagnostic framework.

Quantifying growth and lodging in Tef ( Eragrostis tef ) with Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) →