Progress in the use of geospatial and remote sensing technologies in the assessment and monitoring of tomato crop diseases

With a growing global population and accelerating climate change, systematic assessment and monitoring of crop diseases is urgently required to ensure food security and production. However, current dietary transitions inclined towards vegetables such as tomatoes are expected to increase while effective crop disease monitoring and assessment methods are still limited. Therefore, a state-of-the-art review of progress in the assessment and monitoring of tomato crop diseases using geospatial technologies is presented. Results show that tomato crop diseases and their severity could be detected and discriminated from healthy ones more effectively using various remote sensing systems. Furthermore, the recent advances in RS technologies have greatly facilitated its integration with climatic and topo-edaphic factors to determine the possible drivers of disease infection. Although the use of remotely sensed variables and their integration with bioclimatic factors in understanding tomato crop diseases is still at its infancy, it is one of the most promising technologies.