Callosobruchus maculatus is a major pest of stored pulses causing huge loss especially during the post-harvest period. Counting of obscure C. maculatus eggs performed in research studies are related to pest-control, pest-status, population demography, reproductive parameters, and also in sampling procedures. Counting of numerous tiny eggs is always performed manually which is laborious, time consuming, and tedious. Therefore, an efficient, automated egg counting of C. maculatus, was performed with image processing techniques using ImageJ software. Batch processing of 60 digital images was executed with inclusion of preprocessing, thresholding and filtering using Band-pass, Mexican hat, and Fast filters of ImageJ software. In terms of accuracy, Band-pass method performed best with a mean percentage error difference of 15.55, while Mexican hat and Fast filters recorded 25.66 and 32.41, respectively. Pearsons correlation was also highest (0.908) in Band-pass method. While comparing the execution time for the different methods, Fast Filter method showed highest percentage efficiency improvement of 65.53%. Egg counting time was 852 s in case of manual count but in automated count with Band-pass, Mexican hat, and Fast Filters, it was 41, 32, and 13 s, respectively. Laborious manual counting of C. maculatus eggs in future can be replaced by this automated procedure with good accuracy and rapid execution time.
Key words: Callosobruchus maculatus, Automated egg count, Image processing, Digital images, Manual count
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