Detection and Analysis of Chili Pepper Root Rot by Hyperspectral Imaging Technology

The objective is to develop a portable device capable of promptly identifying root rot in the field. This study employs hyperspectral imaging technology to detect root rot by analyzing spectral variations in chili pepper leaves during times of health, incubation, and disease under the stress of root rot. Two types of chili pepper seeds (Manshanhong and Shanjiao No. 4) were cultured until they had grown two to three pairs of true leaves. Subsequently, robust young plants were infected with Fusarium root rot fungi by the root-irrigation technique. The effective wavelength for discriminating between distinct stages was determined using the successive projections algorithm (SPA) after capturing hyperspectral images. The optimal index related to root rot between each normalized difference spectral index (NDSI) was obtained using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The early detection of root rot illness can be modeled using spectral information at effective wavelengths and in NDSI, together with the application of partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), least squares support vector machine (LSSVM), and back-propagation (BP) neural network technology. The SPA-BP model demonstrates outstanding predictive capabilities compared with other models, with a classification accuracy of 92.3% for the prediction set. However, employing SPA to acquire an excessive number of efficient wave-lengths is not advantageous for immediate detection in practical field scenarios. In contrast, the NDSI (R445, R433)-BP model uses only two wavelengths of spectral information, but the prediction accuracy can reach 89.7%, which is more suitable for rapid detection of root rot. This thesis can provide theoretical support for the early detection of chili root rot and technical support for the design of a portable root rot detector.