At the Curitibanos Campus of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil), BlackBird is used for capturing images of diseases in leaf discs, including Asian grapevine leaf rust (Neophysopella tropicalis) and downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola). The leaf discs inoculated with N. tropicalis are used to train artificial intelligence models aimed at automating the phenotyping process. These models generate data on severity, number of pustules, and average pustule area. This information is then associated with the genotypic analysis of the phenotyped populations to identify genomic regions associated with disease resistance. The images are also used for phenotyping progenies in genetic breeding programs.
