Nele Bendel

In the course of a growing season, grapevines have to compete against many different pathogens, which is flanked by plant protection treatments. For a number of diseases like powdery and downy mildew since long suitable control strategies are available. In contrast, no curative in-field treatments are known for diseases/disease complexes like Esca, phytoplasmoses, and viruses. These pathogens can be present in vines in a latent mode without showing any symptoms but finally leading to losses in yield as well as quality and, eventually, resulting in death of infested vines. Since Esca, phytoplasmoses, and viruses can be transferred during grafting, dissemination with young grafted vines cannot be excluded. Hence, early diagnosis is particularly important for viticulture.

Traditionally, disease detection is either performed by visual symptom assessment, thus, being time consuming and subjective, or by destructive molecular analysis. In recent years, sensor-based methods have proven their potential for the non-invasive and objective detection of different diseases. Therfore, hyperspectral sensors are implemented as they detect not only the visible range of light (VIS; 400-700 nm), but also the near infrared (NIR; 700-1000 nm), and the short-wave infrared (SWIR; 1000-2500 nm) region, thereby, providing high informational content. In different approaches under controlled greenhouse conditions and directly in the field, the suitability of hyperspectral imaging for the detection of grapevine diseases like Esca, phytoplasmoses, and viruses is evaluated

Bendel, N., Kicherer, A., Backhaus, A., Klück, H. C., Seiffert, U., Fischer, M., Voegele, R. T. and Töpfer, R. (2020). Evaluating the Suitability of Hyper-and Multispectral Imaging to Detect Foliar Symptoms of the Grapevine Trunk Disease Esca in Vineyards. Plant Methods, 16, 142.

Bendel, N., Kicherer, A., Backhaus, A., Köckerling, J., Maixner, M., Bleser, E., Klück, H.-C., Seiffert, U., Voegele, R. T. and Töpfer, R. (2020). Detection of Grapevine Leafroll-Associated Virus 1 and 3 in White and Red Grapevine Cultivars Using Hyperspectral Imaging. Remote Sensing, 12, 1693.