Non-Invasive Characterization of Single-, Double- and Triple-Viral Diseases of Wheat With a Hand-Held Raman Spectrometer

Abstract

Plant diseases can reduce crop yield by up to 100%. Therefore, timely and confirmatory diagnosis of plant diseases is strongly desired. Typical pathogen assaying methods include polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). These approaches are quite useful but are also time-consuming and destructive to the sample. Raman spectroscopy (RS) is a modern analytical technique that enables non-invasive plant disease detection. In this study, we report on Ramanbased detection of wheat diseases caused by wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV) and barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV). Our results show that RS can be used to differentiate between healthy wheat and wheat infected by these two viruses. We also show that RS can be used to identify whether wheat is infected by these individual viruses or by a combination of WSMV and BYDV, as well as WSMV, BYDV, and Triticum mosaic virus (TriMV). We found that wheat spectra showed non-linear spectroscopic responses to coinfection by different viruses. These results suggest that RS can be used to probe pathogen-specific changes in plant metabolism. The portable nature of this approach opens the possibility of RS directly in the field for confirmatory diagnostics of viral diseases.

Raman Spectroscopy and Machine-Learning for Early Detection of Bacterial Canker of Tomato: The Asymptomatic Disease Condition

“…Previous works have demonstrated that RS techniques provide a clear differentiation between biotic stress (bacterial infection), abiotic stress (nutritional deficiencies) and healthy plants [ 16 ]. RS has the sensitivity to differentiate a simple or multiple viral infection in the same host [ 18 , 62 ], including the presence of secondary infections [ 30 ]. Additional works are required to determine the Raman spectral specificities to the different diseases that affect tomato plant.…”

Raman-Based Diagnostics of Biotic and Abiotic Stresses in Plants. A Review

“…Recently, Kurouski and group demonstrated that RS could be used for confirmatory identification of viruses in wheat (Farber et al, 2020a). Farber and co-workers found that RS can be used to differentiate between healthy wheat and wheat infected by wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV) and barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV).…”

“…This high sensitivity to small changes in plant biochemistry also enables Raman-based identification of plant species and their varieties, as well as allows for Raman-based selection and breeding of plants (Krimmer et al, 2019;Farber et al, 2020b,c;Sanchez et al, 2020a,d). Although to date, most of the reported experiments were made in greenhouses (Altangerel et al, 2017;Mandrile et al, 2019;Sanchez et al, 2020b,c), there is a growing body of evidence about successful use of RS in the field (Sanchez et al, 2019bFarber et al, 2020a). Once this practice will become the routine of research studies -recognition of RS as a reliable agricultural method will tremendously increase.…”

Non-Invasive Identification of Nutrient Components in Grain

“…This eliminates the need for transportation of plant material, further reducing the cost of analysis, simultaneously minimizing the potential spread of pathogens. Experimental results reported by the our group [ 10 , 11 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ] and other research laboratories [ 12 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ] show that hand-held Raman spectrometers could be used for fast (one second spectral acquisition time) and nearly 100% accurate diagnostics of biotic and abiotic stresses [ 10 , 11 , 13 , 16 , 19 , 20 , 25 ]. This innovative sensing approach is based on detecting and identifying pathogen-induced changes in plant biochemistry.…”