Before revision: Red-green-blue (RGB) digital image-based detection is a promising alternative approach to the existing subjectivity-prone and labor-intensive plant disease quantification methods. K-means clustering (KMC) is a widely used algorithm for processing plant disease RGB images. Because the KMC algorithm clusters pixels based only on color similarity, it has limited utility for quantifying diseases that produce necrotic, coalescing, and water-soaked lesions .
After revision: Rapid and accurate phenotypic screening of rice germplasms is crucial in screening for sources of rice sheath blight resistance. However, visual and/or caliper-based estimations of coalescing, necrotic, ShB disease lesions are time-consuming, labor-intensive and exposed to human rater subjectivity .