How Drone Tech Can Help Growers Target Tomato Diseases
January 14, 2020 University of Florida scientists are high on new drone technology that can identify two different tomato diseases — with 99% accuracy.
To help tomato growers (and maybe other farmers down the road) find diseases early and accurately, UF/IFAS researchers at the Southwest Florida Research and Education Center Pamela Roberts and Yiannis Ampatzidis used images taken by drones to see if they could distinguish between bacterial spot and target spot of tomato. The unmanned aerial vehicles took images of the crop from up above and — from those pictures — the scientists were able to identify the diseases.
Through technology called a “multilayer perceptron neural network,” they differentiated between bacterial spot and target spot, and did so with nearly perfect accuracy, Roberts reported.
“Rapid and accurate identification of a plant pathogen is essential for implementing timely disease management tactics,” she said.
In Florida, fresh market tomatoes bring in $400 million to $500 million annually, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistical Service.
For more details, the new UF/IFAS study is published in the journal Precision Agriculture.
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