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3D-MaizeNet:面向田间玉米高通量表型提取的点云实例分割模型

High-throughput phenotypic parameter extraction method for maize plants based on point cloud instance segmentation

  • 摘要: 玉米作为全球重要粮食作物,其表型参数的高通量精准获取对智能育种至关重要。当前基于三维点云的玉米表型测定方法面临群体植株形态复杂、冠层黏连与相互遮挡导致的单株分割难题,制约了表型数据的高效获取。针对这一问题,该研究提出了一种融合激光雷达数据与深度学习的改进点云实例分割模型——3D-MaizeNet。首先,针对传统算法破坏植株完整性的问题,结合田间种植特点提出基于作物行检测的自适应区块切分方法,构建田间玉米植株的高质量点云数据集。其次,改进轻量化3D-BoNet架构,设计局部空间编码与注意力聚合降采样子模块,增强网络对复杂冠层结构的学习能力,减少空间特征丢失。最后,以精准的单株分割结果为基础,实现了对株高、茎高这两个与产量和抗性紧密相关的关键表型参数的高通量测定。试验表明,3D-MaizeNet的实例分割平均精度(AP)达到0.959,在保持高计算效率的同时显著优于基线模型。基于该分割结果,株高和茎高的测定精度分别达到 R2=0.91 和 R2=0.89。该方法有效改善了复杂冠层下的单株自动分割性能,为关键表型参数的自动化、规模化提取提供了可靠的模型支撑。该研究构建的高通量精准表型测定技术,为玉米基因组学研究与分子育种提供了关键技术支撑。

     

    Abstract: Maize (Zea mays L.) is a major crop for global food security at present. Advanced breeding is often required to enhance yield, stress resistance, and adaptability, particularly for high-throughput, non-destructive, and accurate acquisition of plant phenotypic parameters. Three-dimensional (3D) point clouds acquired by LiDAR can provide unprecedented detail of plant architecture, compared with 2D imaging. However, their widespread application has been confined to the accurate instance segmentation of individual plants within dense populations in real-world fields. Furthermore, conventional clustering or geometry algorithms cannot solve the convoluted spatial arrangement, complex plant morphologies, extensive canopy adhesion—where the leaves of adjacent plants are tightly interwoven—and mutual occlusion among plants. The efficient and reliable extraction of phenotypic data has been severely constrained to the fragmented or incorrectly merged plant instances. In this study, an instance segmentation framework, 3D-MaizeNet, was proposed to integrate LiDAR data with deep learning. Individual maize plants were accurately extracted for the high-throughput measurement of key agronomic traits, such as plant height and stem height. Three stages are included. (1) The structural integrity of the individual plant was preserved to avoid the compromise during simplistic preprocessing. An adaptive block segmentation was introduced using crop row detection. The row-planting pattern of farmlands was divided used to divide the large-scale point cloud into plant-centric blocks. This approach was used to effectively minimize the interference from overlapping canopies in adjacent rows. A high-quality, field-derived point cloud dataset was constructed for robust model training. (2) A local spatial encoding module was designed to learn fine-grained geometric features from complex canopy structures (e.g., leaf angles and stem orientations). Concurrently, an attention aggregation down-sampling module was integrated to reduce the loss of key spatial features during feature extraction. Salient information was selectively preserved to distinguish among tightly packed plants. (3) According to the high-fidelity instance segmentation, an pipeline was established for the high-throughput quantification of plant height and stem height—two pivotal phenotypic parameters closely related to yield potential and lodging resistance. Field-scanned data was were collected to validate the efficacy of the framework. Experimental results showed that the 3D-MaizeNet achieved a mean Average Precision (mAP) of 95.9% and an overall accuracy of 96.4% in instance segmentation, indicating the superior performance to identifyin identifying and delineate delineating the individual plant. Furthermore, the key traits were extracted for the strong correlations with manual ground-truth measurements, with coefficients of determination (R²) of 0.91 and 0.89 for plant height and stem height, respectively. The high-throughput and precise phenotyping platform can provide the technical support to advance the maize genomics, Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS), and ultimately the molecular breeding for next-generation crops.

     

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