Plant count for container-grown plants using an aerial boom and object-based software

Josué Leiva, Jim Robbins, Dharmendra Saraswat

Reza Ehsani

Jim Owen

• Time consuming

• Expensive

• Manual

• Based on estimate methods

Plant inventory in container nurseries

Objective

• Evaluate the effect of boom height and plant density on the counting accuracy of a container- grown plant using Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA) software.

• 13-14 November 2012

• Citrus Research and Education Center. University of Florida

Material and Methods

• Perennial Peanut

(Arachis glabrata Benth)

Sensor

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II (5,616 × 3,744 pixels)

OBIA Software

• Feature Analyst® (Overwatch Textron Systems)

Treatments

Boom height (m) Plant density (Plants per square meter)

9.1

6.3 11.5 16.5 26.5 35.3 12.2

15.2

18.3

Algorithm Development

1,1

1,10

10,1

10,10

5,5

6,6

Results

Table 1. Effect of plant density and boom height on plant counting accuracy (%)

Boom Height (meters)

Plant density (Plants per square meter) Overall Mean

6.3 11.5 16.5 26.5 35.3

9.1 100.0 99.0 99.7 93.6 90.1 96.5

12.2 100.7 101.3 100.0 91.0 91.7 96.9

15.3 100.0 100.3 100.0 91.3 100.3 98.4

18.3 100.0 99.4 99.5 91.7 103.3 98.8

Overall Mean 100.2 100.0 99.8 91.9 96.3 97.6

97.6

Conclusions

• Plant density and boom height did not show a clear effect on plant count accuracy when using Feature Analyst.

Future Research

• UAV

• Other OBIA software

Acknowledgements

• Grant from Oregon Association of Nurseries, Oregon Department of Agriculture

• Brantley Nurseries, Winter Garden, FL

• Sherrie Buchanon, Dr. Joe Maja and Ying She

Thank you!