Data Acquisition Methodologies Utilizing Ground Penetrating Radar for Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) Root Architecture

Abstract

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz), a root crop utilized as food and industrial starch product, develops and maintains its marketable product sub-surface. Often, however, it is difficult to determine the potentially marketable goods available at any given time due to the sub-surface nature of the product and the inability to non-destructively sample. This dilemma has provided an avenue for application of ground penetrating radar. Relatively available designs of this technology, however, are cumbersome and do not provide the efficiencies for field applications. The objective of this research was to determine the functionality of a two Gigahertz frequency IDS GeoRadar C-Thrue antenna for the detection and parameterization of root architecture to be utilized for estimating marketable product. Cassava roots were buried across three horizontal and two vertical orientations to simulate the multi-directional nature of cassava roots. The antenna has dual polarization which also allowed to testing efficacy of polarization for detecting the varying root orientations. This study found that the C-Thrue system, more specifically, the Vertical transmit and Vertical receive polarization, was the most effective at accurately estimating cassava root length and widths at varying angles that simulate root development in true fields.