Modern agriculture is more and more characterized by the use of new technologies, such as sensors, robots, modelling and AI. Agricultural technology in the field of sensing, imaging and computer-based biotechnologies also plays a big role when it comes to detect and survey plant disease. Until now, there has been no quantitative investigation of research topics and the publication landscape, evaluating scientific publications in a structural manner for this research area.
In their current survey, authors Justice Ruwona and Harald Scherm from the University of Georgia (USA) collect data on publications such as books, articles, and journals that address the topic of detecting and imaging of plant disease between 1991 and 2020. As their base, the authors use the literature database Web of Science. Two separate subject searches have been conducted – one focused on sensing and one focused in imaging, following these searches by merging the resulting literary entries. For their calculations, the researchers used mathematic as well as statistical methods.
Uni Bonn and Anne-Katrin Mahlein on top of the field
The result is: the University of Bonn has conducted the most intensive research in the fields sensing and imaging of plant disease. In comparison to other most productive and collaborative research institutions, the University of Bonn places number one with 45 published research works. 30 of these are results of collaborations with other institutions. “Interdisciplinary research is critical for developing innovative solutions for plant disease detection. Therefore the PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence is the perfect environment,“ says Prof. Dr. Anne-Katrin Mahlein, a principal investigator at PhenoRob. The University of Bonn is followed in the ranking by Zhejiang University (26 publications) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (24 publications).
Anne-Katrin Mahlein leads the ranking of most cited authors . The base for this evaluation are citations within 582 publications in the Web of Science. Authors who frequently appear in bibliographies of the same work together have been combined in the analysis.
Cluster of Excellence PhenoRob: Robotics and Phenotyping for Sustainable Crop Production
The Cluster of Excellence PhenoRob is the only Cluster of Excellence in Germany on the subject of agriculture and is carried out in cooperation with the Forschungszentrum Jülich. PhenoRob's objective is to enable substantial steps towards more productive, resource-efficient and sustainable crop production: reducing the ecological footprint of crop production, maintaining the quality of soil and farmland, and demonstrating the best ways to implement new technologies.
Publication from which the data described above is derived:
Justice Ruwona & Harald Scherm: Sensing and imaging of plant disease through the lens of science mapping. Tropical Plant Pathology; https://doi.org/10.1007/s40858-021-00478-6