The Effectiveness Of Using A Spectroradiometer In Detecting Coffee Diseases: A Case Study Of Chipinge Coffee Research Institute, Zimbabwe.

ABSTRACT

Major economic losses in Agriculture worldwide are reported to be caused by plant diseases,

therefore diseases management in an accurate and timely manner is of great importance. This

study assessed the effectiveness of using a spectroradiometer in detecting coffee diseases

(cercospora, CLR). Healthy and diseased plants were used to compare effectiveness of

different indices using a spectroradiometer. Results from this study showed that original data

from a spectroradiometer does not show pronounced reflectance differences between the

healthy coffee plants and the diseased plants. Twenty two known vegetation indices were

used to evaluate the reflectance on healthy and diseased coffee plants (plants infected with

cercospora, CLR). These indices were evaluated using ANOVA in Genstat 14th Edition and

seventeen indices were found to be effective in detecting coffee diseases. The highest

significant difference of p