b'Leblons teamcalibrates the drone camera using a white panel thatreflects all the incoming lightso they will be able to determine how much of the incominglight is reflected from different parts of the field. PHOTO: BRIGITTE LEBLON,UNIVERSITY OFNEW BRUNSWICKThis study is one part of Leblons major project to develop various precisionbut growers currently have a greater chance of getting early blight than late blight agriculture technologies that can be mounted on drones or ground-based equip- because they do so much prevention for late blight. ment. She and her UNB group are collaborating on the project with A&L CanadaEarly blight (Alternaria solani) is a widespread fungal disease that can impact Laboratories Inc. and Western University, while one of her PhD students conductstuber yields and quality. Applications of protective broad-spectrum products can the projects field and greenhouse experiments. A&L, the Natural Sciences and En- be used for early blight management.gineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the New Brunswick InnovationLeblon explains multispectral imagery can be a great tool for plant disease Foundation are funding the project.detection. As soon as the plants become sick, they express differences in their The project team is developing a multispectral camera with the collaboration ofchemical content and so on. These changes affect the type and amount of radia-Jayshri Sabarinathan from Western University. The camera captures different wave- tion they reflect, and the image captures this reflected radiation. So if the plants lengths of light, including wavelengths beyond the spectrum human eyes can see.are not as healthy as they should be, we can see the illness on the image of the The team is also creating algorithms (sets of calculations) that can rapidlyfield.analyze the multispectral imagery for use in four precision agriculture applica- Some of the changes caused by an infection occur before the plants develop tions. Those applications are detection of late blight and early blight in potatosymptoms visible to human eyes. So multispectral imagery enables very early crops; detection of diseases in greenhouse cucumber plants; mapping crop dam- detection of crop infection. age in various crops for more efficient data collection by crop insurance agencies;Mounting a multispectral camera on a drone offers a quick and easy way to and mapping crop nitrogen status in various crops to help with nitrogen fertilizermap plant health and disease across an entire field. management.With a drone, we can get an image of a whole potato field in about 10 Late blight and early blight are major diseases for potatoes particularlyminutes. And if we have a powerful algorithm to interpret the image, then in 10 in Eastern Canada but also in Western Canada, says Leblon. Late blight is aminutes the grower will know if there is disease in the field or not, so if there is a catastrophic disease, and it spreads like crazy. Early blight is not so aggressive,need to spray or not, states Leblon.48 SPUDSMART.COM FALL 2019'