Growth measurement of a community of strawberries using three-dimensional sensor

Abstract

The movable bench cultivation system is a method of increasing area productivity and minimizing the energy needed in a greenhouse. In the system, all plants pass through the same watering point every day. This point should thus be the ideal place to measure precise plant growth information. In this study, we construct an experimental system for a 3D measurement of a community of strawberries cultivated on a 1-meter-long bench. The measurement was made every two to seven days from October 23, 2013 to January 13, 2014. As a result, we obtained 31 images of 10 plant beds. The estimation error of maximum plant height ranged from -30 mm to 32 mm, and that of width ranged from -42 mm to 40 mm. To visualize the growth information effectively, a 2D histogram of the distribution of the 3D points of the plant community was also calculated.