Assessment of downy mildew in grapevine using computer vision and fuzzy logic. Development and validation of a new method

Downy mildew is a major disease of grapevine. Conventional methods for assessing crop diseases are time-consuming and require trained personnel. This work aimed to develop and validate a new method to automatically estimate the severity of downy mildew in grapevine leaves using fuzzy logic and computer vision techniques. Leaf discs of two grapevine varieties were inoculated with Plasmopara viticola and subsequently, RGB images were acquired under indoor conditions. Computer vision techniques were applied for leaf disc location in Petri dishes, image pre-processing and segmentation of pre-processed disc images to separate the pixels representing downy mildew sporulation from the rest of the leaf. Fuzzy logic was applied to improve the segmentation of disc images, rating pixels with a degree of infection according to the intensity of sporulation. To validate the new method, the downy mildew severity was visually evaluated by eleven experts and averaged score was used as the reference value. A coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.87 and a root mean squared error (RMSE) of 7.61 % was observed between the downy mildew severity obtained by the new method and the visual assessment values. Classification of the severity of the infection into three levels was also attempted, achieving an accuracy of 86 % and an F1 score of 0.78. These results indicate that computer vision and fuzzy logic can be used to automatically estimate the severity of downy mildew in grapevine leaves. A new method has been developed and validated to assess the severity of downy mildew in grapevine. The new method can be adapted to assess the severity of other diseases and crops in agriculture.