METHOD, APPARATUS AND SYSTEM FOR DIAGNOSIS OF STRESS AND DISEASE IN HIGHER PLANTS

The present invention relates to a method, apparatus and a system of fast diagnosis of stresses and diseases in higher plants. The proposed methodology is based on the hypothesis of that when a plant is in imbalance; there are changes in its metabolism that render an alteration of the chemical composition of its organs. This chemical alteration leads to a change in the physical properties, such as the fluorescence of the leaves. Due to the complexity of the material of the leaves, the present method proposes that the signal be treated with statistical methods and that the classification is made through softwares based on machine learning. As an example of the application of the invention, the results are shown for the Greening disease in citrus. Currently, Greening is the most severe citrus disease since there is no treatment available for it and due to its high dissemination rate and the fact that it affects all varieties of orange trees, being the diagnosis performed through visual inspection, which renders high subjectivity, high error percentage and the disease is only diagnosed after the expression of the symptoms (˜8 months). During the asymptomatic phase, the infected tree is a source of dissemination of the disease. The present invention can perform the asymptomatic diagnosis of Greening disease from the leaf with a percentage of correct diagnosis higher than 80%.