An expertized grapevine disease image database including five grape varieties focused on Flavescence dorée and its confounding diseases, biotic and abiotic stresses

The grapevine is vulnerable to diseases, deficiencies, and pests, leading to significant yield losses. Current disease controls involve monitoring and spraying phytosanitary products at the vineyard block scale. However, automatic detection of disease symptoms could reduce the use of these products and treat diseases before they spread. Flavescence dorée (FD), a highly infectious disease that causes significant yield losses, is only diagnosed by identifying symptoms on three grapevine organs: leaf, shoot, and bunch. Its diagnosis is carried out by scouting experts, as many other diseases and stresses, either biotic or abiotic, imply similar symptoms (but not all at the same time). These experts need a decision support tool to improve their scouting efficiency. To address this, a dataset of 1483 RGB images of grapevines affected by various diseases and stresses, including FD, was acquired by proximal sensing. The images were taken in the field at a distance of 1-2 meters to capture entire grapevines and an industrial flash was ensuring a constant luminance on the images regardless of the environmental circumstances. Images of 5 grape varieties (Cabernet sauvignon, Cabernet franc, Merlot, Ugni blanc and Sauvignon blanc) were acquired during 2 years (2020 and 2021). Two types of annotations were made: expert diagnosis at the grapevine scale in the field and symptom annotations at the leaf, shoot, and bunch levels on computer. On 744 images, the leaves were annotated and divided into three classes: 'FD symptomatic leaves', 'Esca symptomatic leaves', and 'Confounding leaves'. Symptomatic bunches and shoots were, in addition of leaves, annotated on 110 images using bounding boxes and broken lines, respectively. Additionally, 128 segmentation masks were created to allow the detection of the symptomatic shoots and bunches by segmentation algorithms and compare the results to those of the detection algorithms.

Hygienization and control of Diplodia seriata fungus in vine pruning waste composting and its seasonal variability in open and closed systems

After the ban on sodium arsenite, waste management alternatives to the prevalent burning method, such as the hygienization and biodegradation in solid phase by composting, are required for the pruned material from grapevines affected by various fungi. In this work the dynamics of a fungus associated with vine decay (Diplodia seriata) during the composting process of a mixture of laying hen manure and vine pruning waste (2:1w/w) have been investigated in an open pile and a discontinuous closed biodigester. Through the optimization of the various physical-chemical parameters, hygienization of the infected waste materials was attained, yielding class-A organo-mineral fertilizers. Nevertheless, important differences in the efficiency of each system were observed: whereas in the open pile it took 10days to control D. seriata and 35 additional composting days to achieve full inactivation, in the discontinuous biodigester the fungus was entirely inactivated within the first 3-7days. Finally, the impact of seasonal variability was assessed and summer temperatures shown to have greater significance in the open pile.