Detection of Grapevine Leafroll-Associated Virus 1 and 3 in White and Red Grapevine Cultivars Using Hyperspectral Imaging

• Main Authors: Nele Bendel, Anna Kicherer, Andreas Backhaus, Janine Köckerling, Michael Maixner, Elvira Bleser, Hans-Christian Klück, Udo Seiffert, Ralf T. Voegele, Reinhard Töpfer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-05-01
• Series: Remote Sensing
• Subjects: grapevine leafroll disease; GLRaV; Vitis vinifera; disease detection; plant phenotyping; spectral imaging
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/10/1693

Grapevine leafroll disease (GLD) is considered one of the most widespread grapevine virus diseases, causing severe economic losses worldwide. To date, six grapevine leafroll-associated viruses<i> </i>(GLRaVs) are known as causal agents of the disease, of which GLRaV-1 and -3 induce the strongest symptoms. Due to the lack of efficient curative treatments in the vineyard, identification of infected plants and subsequent uprooting is crucial to reduce the spread of this disease. Ground-based hyperspectral imaging (400–2500 nm) was used in this study in order to identify white and red grapevine plants infected with GLRaV-1 or -3. Disease detection models have been successfully developed for greenhouse plants discriminating symptomatic, asymptomatic, and healthy plants. Furthermore, field tests conducted over three consecutive years showed high detection rates for symptomatic white and red cultivars, respectively. The most important detection wavelengths were used to simulate a multispectral system that achieved classification accuracies comparable to the hyperspectral approach. Although differentiation of asymptomatic and healthy field-grown grapevines showed promising results further investigations are needed to improve classification accuracy. Symptoms caused by GLRaV-1 and -3 could be differentiated.