1991 Volume 60 Issue 3 Pages 677-683
This research was done to develop a non-destructive and easy method for the measurement of in vitro plant growth by image processing. Video images recorded with a CCD (charge coupled device) video camera at a fixed distance were digitized with a digitizing board housed in a personal computer. The shadows arising from the culture vessel and medium were eliminated from the digitized images with commercially available graphic software. The picture element number of the processed plantlet images was counted with an original program (N88-BASIC compiler). The optimum number of measurements per sample and the optimum depression angle of the video camera to the vessel were identified.
Regardless of the kind of culture vessel, plant species, and number of plantlets per vessel, the picture element numbers were correlated with actual data obtained manually for the growth parameters of plant height, leaf number, leaf area, fresh weight, and dry weight. When the plantlets were measured from the direction in which the plantlet image area was largest and at the depression angles of 0° to 20°, the correlation coefficients were highest. Only one measurement at that position was enough for calculation of the plant growth parameters.
