Amazing Tool For Electroculture Experiments - Measure Pest Damage & Leaf Surface Area Fast & Easy

LeafByte is an app that was developed by Zoe Getman-Pickering & Adam Campbell at Cornell University [1]. Zoe was a PhD student TA (teaching assistant) in my biostatistics course when I was an undergrad student at Cornell. One of the best TA’s I ever had during my time there! Now she’s a postdoc at George Washington University [2].

This quick tutorial shows you that anyone can use LeafByte to measure insect pest damage on the leaves of your fruits and veggies. Some researchers have already started using LeafByte in their experiments, and have published peer-reviewed papers with measurements taken by LeafByte [3,4,5].

I am currently using LeafByte in my outdoor electroculture experiment on mustard leaves. It’s a great way to measure leaf surface area and pest damage (% herbivory) to compare between a control and treatment group (electroculture or any other setup you wish to test). If you grow your own food and want to compare different crop varieties for pest tolerance, you will greatly benefit from this app.

LeafByte is currently free to use and works on mobile iOS devices that include iPhones and iPads with iOS v. 9 & above. The android version has not been released yet and is in development. A great list of FAQs has been compiled on Zoe’s website:

There are more nuances to using LeafByte effectively, which can be addressed in the FAQs and the instructions tab titled “How to use Leafbyte.” In this reel I showed that my scale is slightly off by about 0.25 cm on one side. You want to aim for a perfect square when possible. If unable, then consistently take into account the error in your final result. I can also release a longer YouTube video to share tips and tricks that need more time than what Instagram allows in a 90 second reel limit.

If you plan on doing electroculture experiments, LeafByte will be a very useful tool to validate your results.

Sources:

[1] LeafByte: A mobile application that measures leaf area and herbivory quickly and accurately

[3] Feeding potential of adult Systena frontalis (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) on leaves of Hydrangea paniculata (Cornales: Hydrangeaceae)

[4] Low-Dose Insecticide Combinations for Colorado Potato Beetle Control

[5] Soil microbiota explain differences in herbivore resistance between native and invasive populations of a perennial herb

[emilyemily]

Do you need the exact measurement for each leaf? So like, let’s says I have two leafs one 10cm and another 20cm. Would I have to adjust each time I take a picture?