Non-destructive and cost-effective 3D plant growth monitoring system in outdoor conditions

There is a high demand for non-destructive systems in plant phenotyping which should precisely calculate plant growth and structure parameters. In this study, the growth of chilli plants ( Capsicum annum L ) was monitored in outdoor conditions. We also proposed a cost-effective and non-destructive solution for reconstruction of plants in 3D using a single mobile phone camera based on a structure from motion algorithm. Various plant growth and structure parameters such as number of leaves, plant height, and leaf area were measured from the reconstructed 3D models at different plant growth periods. The accuracy of our proposed system is measured by comparing the values derived from the 3D plant model with manual measurements. The results demonstrate that the proposed system has potential to monitor plant growth precisely and non-destructively in outdoor conditions when compared with state-of-the-art systems.