Brown patch, caused by the fungus Rhizoctonia solani, is a major disease affecting tall fescue grown in the transition zone. Although a related pathogen, Rhizoctonia zeae, presents similar symptoms, it is not usually included in the screening processwhen developing brown patch-resistant cultivars. This exclusion, along with the subjectivity of visual disease-severity evaluation methods, may contribute to the variability in brown patch resistance observed among available cultivars. This study included two objectives: Develop a digital image analysis (DIA) method to accurately assess brown patch severity on tall fescue. Assess the resistance response of tall fescue plant introductions to the pathogens R. solani and R. zeae using DIA. The first objective involved two studies, including a quantification of the DIA method to assure accurate disease-severity assessment, followed by a comparison of DIA methods and visual evaluations to assess their respective accuracy and precision.
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