PLANT VARIETY COLOR ASSESSMENT USING A STILL VIDEO CAMERA

This paper describes two experiments to investigate the use of a still video camera (Canon ion-pc) to distinguish plant varieties on the bas is of colour differences. Images of trays of young plants or individua l plants in the field were captured and digitized. In one experiment t he colour of seven varieties of celery (Apium graveolens L.) was measu red at the yotmg plant stage. Using the colour image data, it was poss ible to discriminate between varieties (with p<0.01) in 19% of the var iety pair comparisons. A further 39% of variety comparisons were signi ficant at the 5% level. If non-leaf parts of the colour range were use d further discrimination was possible. In a second experiment with ima ges of plants of Brussels sprouts (Brassica oleracea L. convar olerace a var. gemmifera DC.) growing in the Field, 86% of differences between pairs were significant at the 1% level.