Potatoes: an algorithm that recognizes diseases

After several years of research, Eurocelp teams have developed an algorithm capable of continuously detecting potato diseases.

These are the diseases:
 

• Black Scurf
• Common Scab
• Silver scab and black dot diseases.

(Click to enlarge)

Potato Diseases

Luc Deroulers, founder of Eurocelp:

“No one in the world has yet worked on this subject. It's a small market you have to know.”

“The diseases concerned have major impacts on commercial quality.”

“For the potato plant, depending on the degree of contamination, batches are refused on some destinations. And for ware potatoes, these diseases have a direct impact on the quality of presentation and therefore on the value of the batches.”

“So far, they are doing this work manually on a small number of tubers. Eurocelp provides a precise and fast solution, making it possible to analyse a representative sample.”

“Unlike optical sorters, the computation time is not critical, a very advanced algorithm makes it possible to be precise in detections. For each disease, the potato is classified as unharmed, mildly affected or severely affected.”

“The equipment is installed in the customer's laboratory, which is faster, more accurate and more consistent.”

“In addition to France, we have customers in Spain, Belgium and Germany. The algorithm is also very interesting for countries like Egypt and Israel. Moreover, we will have a stand at Potato Europe in Belgium.”

Luc explains that the system was developed at the request of potato trading customers.

This feature is part of a complete batch quality assessment service offered by Eurocelp: gauges, external defects, presentation quality and photos.

With this algorithm, Luc aims to serve an international market.

Luc Deroulers worked for 10 years in the potato trade. Based on this experience, he created Eurocelp, a tool for evaluating the quality of potato lots, in 2012.