Background
Heterobasidion annosum (Fomes root rot) is one of the most economically damaging fungal pathogens in European spruce plantations. By the time visual symptoms appear in the canopy, significant root damage has already occurred and the pathogen has likely spread to neighbouring trees.
Our Approach
We combined three data streams:
- Sentinel-2 satellite imagery — NDVI and red-edge indices tracked weekly
- Distributed soil moisture sensors — deployed at 50m intervals across test plots
- Spore trap networks — automated basidiospore capture near stand edges
A lightweight machine-learning model was trained to flag anomalies in the combined signal 6–8 weeks before visible crown thinning.
Key Findings
- Detection sensitivity: 91% at the plot level
- False positive rate: 8% (acceptable for early intervention scheduling)
- Cost reduction: infected plots treated early showed 40% less spread to adjacent trees
Next Steps
We are expanding the pilot to include Scots pine stands and integrating real-time alerting via a web dashboard. A peer-reviewed paper is in preparation for submission to Forest Ecology and Management.
Interested in deploying this system? Contact us.