Narrow Results

We studied soybean leaves of the main soybean cultivars and their mutants from Shanxi Province, China, using multifractal spectrum analysis of transmission scanned gray scale images of excised leaves. We demonstrate that the parameters of multifractal spectra correlate with the biological status of the plant. The width $\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha$ of the multifractal spectrum, a parameter of the transmission scanned gray scale image, is a good indicator of the metabolic state and growth rate of a soybean leaf. In general, the larger the value of $\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha$, the more exuberant the metabolism and the faster the growth rate of the leaf. ${\alpha }_{min}$ is a parameter related with the distribution of chlorophyll in leaf, it reflects the concentration degree of chlorophyll; the smaller the value of ${\alpha }_{min}$, the higher the concentration degree of chlorophyll in the leaf. ${\alpha }_{max}$ is a parameter related with the distribution of water in the leaf, it reflects the concentration degree of water; the larger the value of ${\alpha }_{max}$, the higher the concentration degree of water in the leaf. In order to reduce the impact of errors in the calculation of $\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha$, ${\alpha }_{min}$ and ${\alpha }_{max}$, we introduced three new parameters — the characteristic width $\mathrm{\Delta }{\alpha }_C$, the characteristic ${\alpha }_S$ and the characteristic ${\alpha }_L$. We compare the values of $\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha$, ${\alpha }_{min}$ and ${\alpha }_{max}$ among the different leaves qualitatively by replacing $\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha$, ${\alpha }_{min}$ and ${\alpha }_{max}$ with $\mathrm{\Delta }{\alpha }_C$, ${\alpha }_S$ and ${\alpha }_L$, respectively. In research of soybean leaf growth, stress resistance of soybean cultivars and the breeding of excellent varietals, $\mathrm{\Delta }{\alpha }_C$ is shown here to be a new and useful indicator for analysis.