Spectral reflectance measurements of a virus host model

A technique has been developed to detect the characteristic spectral signatures of healthy and infected St. Augustine grass. It is possible to predict the coverage of the infected area provided ground truth coverage shows positive St. Augustine grass turf. Qualitative measurements from photographs of plants in the blue and red regions with polarization show that light reflected from healthy plants is more strongly polarized than that from diseased plants. Photographs taken through the blue Wratten 47 filter in conjuction with a polarizer show an excellent differentiation. A large photographic difference also appears in the red region. Much smaller differences were noted in the 540 to 550 nm region. Although the intensity in the near-IR region is much higher than the visible region of the spectrum, differences in the healthy and diseased plants' reflectance were quite small.