AUTHOR=Zhu Xiaoying , Zhou Weiyu , Li Jianguo , Yang Mingchong , Zhou Haiyu , Huang Jiada , Shi Jiahua , Shen Jun , Pang Guangyao , Wang Lingqiang 

TITLE=Rice-SVBDete: a detection algorithm for small vascular bundles in rice stem’s cross-sections

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=Volume 16 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2025.1589161

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2025.1589161

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=IntroductionVascular bundles play a vital role in the growth, development, and yield formation of rice. Accurate measurement of their structure and distribution is essential for improving rice breeding and cultivation strategies. However, the detection of small vascular bundles from cross-sectional images is challenging due to their tiny size and the noisy background typically present in microscopy images.MethodsTo address these challenges, we propose Rice-SVBDete, a specialized deep learning-based detection algorithm for small vascular bundles in rice stem cross-sections. Our approach enhances the YOLOv8 architecture by incorporating three key innovations: Dynamic Snake-shaped Convolution (DSConv) in the Backbone network to adaptively capture intricate structural details of small targets. A Multi-scale Feature Fusion (MFF) mechanism, combining features from the Backbone, Feature Pyramid Network (FPN), and Path Aggregation Network (PAN), to better handle objects at multiple scales. A new Powerful Intersection over Union (PIoU) loss function that emphasizes spatial consistency and positional accuracy, replacing the standard CIoU loss.ResultsExperimental evaluations show that Rice-SVBDete achieves a precision of 0.789, recall of 0.771, and mean Average Precision (mAP@.5) of 0.728 at an IoU threshold of 0.50. Compared to the baseline YOLOv8, Rice-SVBDete improves precision by 0.179, recall by 0.201, and mAP@.5 by 0.227, demonstrating its effectiveness in small object detection.DiscussionThese results highlight Rice-SVBDete's potential for accurately identifying small vascular bundles in complex backgrounds, providing a valuable tool for rice anatomical analysis and supporting advancements in precision agriculture and plant science research.