University of Florida – Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS)
Southwest Florida Research and Education Center (SWFREC)
Accurate plant counting and monitoring are critical tasks in modern nurseries and
precision agriculture. In large-scale commercial operations, thousands of seedlings are
produced each season, and the process of identifying, counting, and classifying healthy
versus empty cells is still largely performed manually. This manual inspection is labor-
intensive, time-consuming, and prone to human error, often resulting in inaccurate plant
inventories and inconsistent crop management decisions.
Recent studies from the University of Florida highlight that seedborne diseases and
seed quality issues represent a growing challenge in the Southeastern U.S. vegetable
transplant industry, particularly for crops such as watermelon and tomato. Data collected
between 2022 and 2024 show that 49% of watermelon seeds had pullable plant rates
below the expected germination rate, resulting in an estimated $5.7 million in lost revenue
and over 6% of planted acreage lost. Such losses highlight the need for automated nursery
monitoring systems capable of quantifying germination rates, detecting weak seedlings,
and ensuring uniform plant growth.