1. Plant count for container-grown plants using
an aerial boom and object-based software
Josué Leiva, Jim Robbins, Dharmendra Saraswat
Reza Ehsani
Jim Owen

2. • Time consuming
• Expensive
• Manual
• Based on estimate methods
Plant inventory in container nurseries

3. Objective
• Evaluate the effect of boom height and plant
density on the counting accuracy of a
container- grown plant using Object Based
Image Analysis (OBIA) software.

4. • 13-14 November 2012
• Citrus Research and Education Center.
University of Florida
Material and Methods
• Perennial Peanut
(Arachis glabrata Benth)

6. Sensor
• Canon EOS 5D Mark II
(5,616 × 3,744 pixels)

8. OBIA Software
• Feature Analyst®
(Overwatch Textron Systems)

9. Treatments
Boom height (m) Plant density (Plants per square meter)
9.1
6.3 11.5 16.5 26.5 35.3
12.2
15.2
18.3

10. Algorithm Development

11. 1,1
1,10
10,1
10,10
5,5
6,6

28. Results

29. Table 1. Effect of plant density and boom height
on plant counting accuracy (%)
Boom Height
(meters)
Plant density (Plants per square meter)
Overall
Mean
6.3 11.5 16.5 26.5 35.3
9.1 100.0 99.0 99.7 93.6 90.1 96.5
12.2 100.7 101.3 100.0 91.0 91.7 96.9
15.3 100.0 100.3 100.0 91.3 100.3 98.4
18.3 100.0 99.4 99.5 91.7 103.3 98.8
Overall Mean 100.2 100.0 99.8 91.9 96.3 97.697.6

30. Conclusions
• Plant density and boom height did not show a
clear effect on plant count accuracy when
using Feature Analyst.

31. Future Research
• UAV
• Other OBIA software

32. Acknowledgements
• Grant from Oregon Association of Nurseries, Oregon
Department of Agriculture
• Brantley Nurseries, Winter Garden, FL
• Sherrie Buchanon, Dr. Joe Maja and Ying She

33. Thank you!