Fusarium Head Blight Detection in Wheat using Digital Imaging

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Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a disease of wheat and other cereals, which in Canada is caused by Fusariumgraminearum. The disease causes significant quality and quantity losses in grain, and affects food safety byproducing secondary metabolites, also known as mycotoxins. Over the last three decades, the disease hascaused $1.5 billion in losses to Canadian producers. The incidence of the disease varies from year-to-year andactive monitoring of standing crops is key to developing timely corrective strategies to mitigate losses. Thecurrent method of assessing FHB is for trained crop scouts to manually survey the field. The process is slow,subjective and labour intensive. Farmers Edge, an agricultural data analytics company, has vested interest indeveloping technologies to detect FHB from field images. Therefore, Farmers Edge wants to partner with Dr.Paliwal's research team to develop an imaging method capable of objectively assessing FHB infection levels instanding crops. In the realm of this preliminary study, visible, near-infrared and thermal imaging techniqueswill be evaluated to determine the most effective way of imaging crops at the wheat-breeding nursery in theDepartment of Plant Science (University of Manitoba). Additionally, multivariate classification models will bedeveloped and tested and their suitability in FHB detection will be tested. The outcome of this project will helpour industry partner (i.e. Farmers Edge) by adding FHB detection from field data to the array of services theyprovide to their clients.