Image Based Analysis of Tomato Leaves to Determine the Number of Petioles

The tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) is an herbaceous, usually sprawling plant which belong to Solanaceae or nightshade family. Genetic evidence shows that the progenitors of tomatoes were herbaceous green plants with small green fruit. There are a great many (around 7500) tomato varieties grown for various purposes. Their identifications had been studied using various laboratory methods. The morphological and genetical characteristics were employed to classify different tomato cultivars. However, the presence of wide morphological varieties through evolution among various tomato cultivars made it more complex and difficult to classify them. Petioles plays a very crucial role in determining the characteristics of a tomato plant. The number of petioles present, their angle with the leaf stalk or their distance from the stalk represent genetical characteristics which differentiate various cultivars of tomato. This article proposed various methods to find the number of petioles present in a tomato leaf using an image analysis based approach.