A new software for measuring leaf area, and area damaged by Tetranychus urticae Koch

Measuring leaf area manually is a tedious and time-consuming process and it is inaccurate. In an attempt to make this process easier and more accurate, a new software namely 'Compu Eye, Leaf & Symptom Area' was developed. A standard green shape with a known area of 1.5 cm(2) was used to evaluate the accuracy of the software. The measurements obtained were of high accuracy. Measurements varied between 1.4771 and 1.5095 cm(2). Probabilities of t values were usually <0.01 and did not exceed 0.023. It was also observed that accuracy could be enhanced either by increasing scanner resolution and/or by decreasing measurement unit area. In order to evaluate the performance of the software, leaves with symptoms of mite injury were collected from six different plant species (squash, cucumber, green bean, vigna, dahlia and rose). Symptom area of each leaf was assessed manually and by the software. It was observed that the software was able to assess the symptom area accurately with no significant difference compared with manual measurement.