Abstract
Size and shape are important properties of shrub crops such as blueberries, and they can be particularly useful for evaluating bush architecture suited to mechanical harvesting. The overall goal of this study was to develop a 3D imaging approach to measure size-related traits and bush shape that are relevant to mechanical harvesting. 3D point clouds were acquired for 367 bushes from five genotype groups. Point cloud data were preprocessed to obtain clean bush points for characterizing bush architecture, including bush morphology (height, width, and volume), crown size, and shape descriptors (path curve λ and five shape indices). One-dimensional traits (height, width, and crown size) had high correlations (R2 = 0.88–0.95) between proposed method and manual measurements, whereas bush volume showed relatively lower correlations (R2 = 0.78–0.85). These correlations suggested that the present approach was accurate in measuring one-dimensional size traits and acceptable in estimating three-dimensional bush volume. Statistical results demonstrated that the five genotype groups were statistically different in crown size and bush shape. The differences matched with human evaluation regarding optimal bush architecture for mechanical harvesting. In particular, a visualization tool could be generated using crown size and path curve λ, which showed great potential of determining bush architecture suitable for mechanical harvesting quickly. Therefore, the processing pipeline of 3D point cloud data presented in this study is an effective tool for blueberry breeding programs (in particular for mechanical harvesting) and farm management.
Highlights
IntroductionBlueberries are nutritious fruit, containing ample amounts of phytochemicals (e.g., antioxidants) beneficial to human health[1]
Blueberries are nutritious fruit, containing ample amounts of phytochemicals beneficial to human health[1]
The terrain elevation was relatively level in the field at the Horticulture Research Station in North Carolina, but clear color contrasts were observed between furrows and plant beds
Summary
Blueberries are nutritious fruit, containing ample amounts of phytochemicals (e.g., antioxidants) beneficial to human health[1]. An increasing demand for blueberries has been foreseen, requiring improvements in blueberry production technology and fruit quality in the future. These improvements require breeding programs to develop superior genotypes that are better adapted to different climates and modern agriculture production practices, including fruit harvesting with over-the-row (OTR) mechanical harvesters. Phenotyping technologies provide various traits for genotype evaluation in breeding programs[3,4,5] These traits can be used for management decision-making in commercial production fields such as the ability to use mechanical harvesting methods with limited (or even no) impacts on fruit quality
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