A Review of Application of Computed Tomography on Early Detection of Basal Stem Rot Disease

Abstract

To the best of our knowledge in agriculture, basal stem rot disease causes a major loss in palm oil industry as it affects the production of the edible oil as well as for biofuel industry. The disease attacks the root of the tree which is cause by fungal of Ganoderma Boninense. Meanwhile, there is no sensor commercially available to detect any disease or stress in the tree without the risk of damage from physical intrusion. Hence, early detection technique on the infected tree is crucial to avoid more damage to the tree. Development of tomography application on detecting the disease in plant plays important role to enhance the quality in research and development on managing a better and healthier plantation management. In recent years, several tomography systems such as X-Ray microtomography and GammaScorpion are used to analyse wood microstructure and for early detection of basal stem rot respectively. Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography or ECVT is a promising non-invasive imaging technique that provides 3D and real time imaging of object. In this paper, we compared the images between the healthy and unhealthy palm oil trunk using these three tomography imaging techniques which is X-Ray, Gamma Ray and ECVT in terms of clarity, time taken and portability of the devices. The result indicates the potential of ECVT as the most suitable device to be used to detect the disease due to its fastest time taken, safety and easy to be used.