scholarly journals CropSurveyor: a scalable open-source experiment management system for distributed plant phenotyping and IoT-based crop management

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Reynolds ◽  
Joshua Ball ◽  
Alan Bauer ◽  
Simon Griffiths ◽  
Ji Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Management System ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Crop Management ◽  
Crop Growth ◽  
Plant Phenotyping ◽  
Smart Devices ◽  
Growth Monitoring ◽  
Crop Performance ◽  
Experiment Management

AbstractBackground:High-quality plant phenotyping and climate data lay the foundation of phenotypic analysis as well as genotype-by-environment interactions, which is important biological evidence not only to understand the dynamics between crop performance, genotypes, and environmental factors, but also for agronomists and farmers to monitor crops in fluctuating agricultural conditions. With the rise of Internet of Things technologies in recent years, many IoT-based remote sensing devices have been applied to phenotyping and crop monitoring that generate big plant-environment datasets every day; however, it is still technically challenging to calibrate, annotate, and aggregate big data effectively, especially when they were generated in multiple locations, and often at different scales.Findings:CropSurveyor is a PHP and SQL based server platform, which provides automated data collation, storage, device and experiment management through IoT-based sensors and distributed plant phenotyping workstations. It provides a two-component solution for monitoring biological experiments and networked devices, with interfaces specifically designed for distributed IoT devices and centralised data servers. Data transfer is performed automatically though an HTTP accessible RESTful API installed on both device-side and server-side of the CropSurveyor system, which synchronise daily representative crop growth images for quick and visual-based crop assessment, as well as detailed microclimate readings for GxE studies. CropSurveyor also supports the comparison of historical and ongoing crop performance whilst different experiments are being conducted.Conclusions:As an open-source experiment and data management system, CropSurveyor can be used to maintain and collate important crop performance and microclimate datasets captured by IoT sensors and distributed phenotyping installations. It provides near real-time environmental and crop growth monitoring in addition to historical and current data comparison through a single cloud-ready server system. Accessible both locally in the field through smart devices and remotely in an office using a PC, CropSurveyor has been used in wheat field experiments for prebreeding since 2016 and has the potential to enable scalable crop management and IoT-style agricultural practices in the near future.

scholarly journals Development of an Apparatus for Crop-Growth Monitoring and Diagnosis

Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 3129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Ni ◽  
Jingchao Zhang ◽  
Rusong Wu ◽  
Fangrong Pang ◽  
Yan Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiments ◽  
Leaf Nitrogen ◽  
Crop Growth ◽  
Growth Monitoring ◽  
Nitrogen Accumulation ◽  
Leaf Nitrogen Content ◽  
Area Index ◽  
Linear Fitting ◽  
Monitoring And Diagnosis ◽  
Mean Square Errors

To non-destructively acquire leaf nitrogen content (LNC), leaf nitrogen accumulation (LNA), leaf area index (LAI), and leaf dry weight (LDW) data at high speed and low cost, a portable apparatus for crop-growth monitoring and diagnosis (CGMD) was developed according to the spectral monitoring mechanisms of crop growth. According to the canopy characteristics of crops and actual requirements of field operation environments, splitting light beams by using an optical filter and proper structural parameters were determined for the sensors. Meanwhile, an integral-type weak optoelectronic signal processing circuit was designed, which changed the gain of the system and guaranteed the high resolution of the apparatus by automatically adjusting the integration period based on the irradiance received from ambient light. In addition, a coupling processor system for a sensor information and growth model based on the microcontroller chip was developed. Field experiments showed that normalised vegetation index (NDVI) measured separately through the CGMD apparatus and the ASD spectrometer showed a good linear correlation. For measurements of canopy reflectance spectra of rice and wheat, their linear determination coefficients (R2) were 0.95 and 0.92, respectively while the root mean square errors (RMSEs) were 0.02 and 0.03, respectively. NDVI value measured by using the CGMD apparatus and growth indices of rice and wheat exhibited a linear relationship. For the monitoring models for LNC, LNA, LAI, and LDW of rice based on linear fitting of NDVI, R2 were 0.64, 0.67, 0.63 and 0.70, and RMSEs were 0.31, 2.29, 1.15 and 0.05, respectively. In addition, R2 of the models for monitoring LNC, LNA, LAI, and LDW of wheat on the basis of linear fitting of NDVI were 0.82, 0.71, 0.72 and 0.70, and RMSEs were 0.26, 2.30, 1.43, and 0.05, respectively.

scholarly journals Development of a Raspberry Pi-Based Sensor System for Automated In-Field Monitoring to Support Crop Breeding Programs

Inventions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Worasit Sangjan ◽  
Arron H. Carter ◽  
Michael O. Pumphrey ◽  
Vadim Jitkov ◽  
Sindhuja Sankaran
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Imaging System ◽  
Crop Growth ◽  
Sensor System ◽  
Plant Phenotyping ◽  
Raspberry Pi ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Growth Stages ◽  
Crop Breeding ◽  
Breeding Programs

Sensor applications for plant phenotyping can advance and strengthen crop breeding programs. One of the powerful sensing options is the automated sensor system, which can be customized and applied for plant science research. The system can provide high spatial and temporal resolution data to delineate crop interaction with weather changes in a diverse environment. Such a system can be integrated with the internet to enable the internet of things (IoT)-based sensor system development for real-time crop monitoring and management. In this study, the Raspberry Pi-based sensor (imaging) system was fabricated and integrated with a microclimate sensor to evaluate crop growth in a spring wheat breeding trial for automated phenotyping applications. Such an in-field sensor system will increase the reproducibility of measurements and improve the selection efficiency by investigating dynamic crop responses as well as identifying key growth stages (e.g., heading), assisting in the development of high-performing crop varieties. In the low-cost system developed here-in, a Raspberry Pi computer and multiple cameras (RGB and multispectral) were the main components. The system was programmed to automatically capture and manage the crop image data at user-defined time points throughout the season. The acquired images were suitable for extracting quantifiable plant traits, and the images were automatically processed through a Python script (an open-source programming language) to extract vegetation indices, representing crop growth and overall health. Ongoing efforts are conducted towards integrating the sensor system for real-time data monitoring via the internet that will allow plant breeders to monitor multiple trials for timely crop management and decision making.

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