New app lets growers diagnose crop diseases

Growers could soon be able to diagnose diseases in their crops more easily and quickly, thanks to a new smartphone app.

The Crop Disease Detector app, developed by staff at Manchester Metropolitan University, uses a simple photograph of a leaf to provide near-instant automatic disease diagnosis of crops.

Once a photograph of the leaf has been taken, the app connects to an innovative cloud-based processing system that allows it to automatically identify abnormalities on the leaf’s surface.

It takes less than a minute to provide an on-screen diagnosis and an accompanying description of the disease, as well as providing an indication of its severity in the crop, and advice on typical treatment techniques.

The app can also be used to depict the leaf images as markers on a map so that farmers and producers can pinpoint areas of land which are disease-hit and those which are healthy.

“Crop plants can be affected by various diseases and it is estimated that almost 40% of worldwide crops are lost to diseases, with the potential to cause devastating economical, social and ecological losses,” said Professor Liangxiu Han from the university’s school of computing, mathematics and digital technology.

She said it was hoped the app would give farmers and growers more accurate information and allow a non-expert to perform almost immediate diagnosis of crop disease.

The app has initially been programmed to identify three types of foliar disease that tend to affect wheat – septoria, yellow rust and leaf rust.