China's first AI doctor for 'pine tree cancer' goes online

The first integrated AI platform for early pine wilt disease was introduced in China's eastern city of Nanjing on August 12.

Pine wilt disease, often referred to as the "cancer of pine trees," rarely causes visible discoloration during the early stages of infection. This makes timely detection difficult through manual inspections or conventional images alone. By the time obvious changes become visible in a tree's crown, the disease may already have progressed to the middle or late stages.

The AI platform was co-generated by Nanjing Forestry University and China's internet giant Baidu.

In traditional research workflows, researchers draw on forestry expertise to identify potentially effective features across a wide range of spectral bands, vegetation indices and their combinations, then validate them individually through extensive experiments. Validating every combination manually is not only time-consuming but can also introduce bias based on researchers' prior experience.

Working with Baidu's Famou AI agent, the team uses an AI platform to automatically generate, test and compare different feature combinations, allowing researchers to quickly identify the most promising solutions for further experimentation.

At present, Nanjing Forestry University's pine wilt disease detection and prevention technology has been deployed across Jiangsu, Liaoning, Anhui and other provinces, covering approximately 133,333 hectares in total, an area 1.82 times the size of Singapore.

The AI solutions are expected to further strengthen early-warning capabilities across around 3,333 to 66,667 hectares of high-risk pine forests. They are also projected to reduce the costs of verification, prevention and control operations, and model iteration by around 30 million to 50 million yuan, or US$4.42 million to US$7.37 million.