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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #95251
Title: AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM TO ESTIMATE THE NUMBER FLOWERS USING IMAGES FROM A DIGITAL CAMERA

Author
item Adamsen, Floyd
item Barnes, Edward
item Coffelt, Terry
item Rice, Robert

Submitted to: Agronomy Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/28/1997
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: While the number of flowers produced by a crop can be an important factor in determining yield, the time required makes it difficult to carry out large studies involving flower count. A study was undertaken using a true color digital camera to determine the feasibility of using images from the camera to count flowers of varieties Brassica napus, B. Rapas and Lesquerella fendleri which have yellow flowers. The camera had a 1024 by 768 pixel resolution and 24 bit color resolution. A pixel represented a square area of 1.49 mm when the image was taken 1.6 m above the canopy. Software running on a Pentium 133 computer was used to crop the image to represent 1m x 1m and reduce the image to only black and yellow. Yellow areas associated with stems and pods were eliminated by using a two dimensional low pass filter. The area of flowers was then calculated and the number of yellow spots counted to produce a flower count. The results of these automated procedures were well correlated with manual counts.