Modeling Approaches for Digital Plant Phenotyping Under Dynamic Conditions of Natural, Climatic and Anthropogenic Factors

Methods, algorithms, and models for the creation and practical application of digital twins (3D models) of agricultural crops are presented, illustrating their condition under different levels of atmospheric CO2 concentration, soil, and meteorological conditions. An algorithm for digital phenotyping using machine learning methods with the U2-Net architecture are proposed for segmenting plants into elements and assessing their condition. To obtain a dataset and conduct verification experiments, a prototype of a software and hardware complex has been developed that implements the process of cultivation and digital phenotyping without disturbing the microclimate inside the chamber and eliminating the subjectivity of measurements. In order to identify new data and confirm the data published in open scientific sources on the effects of CO2 on crop growth and development, plants (ten species) were grown at different CO2 concentrations (0.015–0.03% and 0.07–0.09%) with a 10-fold repetition. A model has been built and trained to distinguish between cases when plant segments need to be combined because they belong to the same leaf (p-value = 0.05), and when they belong to a separate leaf (p-value = 0.03). A knowledge base has been formed, including: 790 3D models of plants and data on their physiological characteristics.