handheld microscope for early plant disease detection

When plants become infected with pathogens, there are early markers to indicate disease development that appear on leaf surfaces like spots, discolorations, blobs, etc. These indicators show up early within the lifecycle of the pathogen, but it can be difficult to determine the identity of the pathogen by eye. Current computational methods to detect pathogens are built for smartphone image acquisition, which sometimes does not provide enough information for identification, or laboratory-based microscopy image acquisition, which can magnify the sample greatly for identification but usually requires the destruction of the leaf sample. Not to mention, depending on how long ago the leaf sample was taken from the plant and then sent to the lab, the leaf could no longer be representative of in-field conditions. To address these concerns, researchers at Purdue University have designed an in-field, handheld microscope and system for early plant disease detection with magnification capabilities and does not result in destruction of plant leaves.

Technology Validation:

-Technology can detect diseased areas on plant leaves and classify the disease based on morphological features for 4 field samples

Advantages

-Modular setup, so easy to exchange out parts like eyepiece, objective, or light source

-Real-time, in-field detection of plant diseases

-Early detection and very reliable

Applications

-Detection of plant diseases in the field by farmers

TRL: 4

Intellectual Property:

Keywords: In-field disease detection, handheld plant microscope, early plant disease diagnosis, non-destructive plant disease detection, real-time crop monitoring, modular microscope, plant pathogen classification, agricultural technology, crop disease management, morphological feature analysis, Agriculture, Computer Technology, handheld device, Machine Learning, microscopes, Plant pathogen detection