Abstract: The new method was arapid non-destructive leaf area measurement method, it could be used to measure leaf area of apple, grape and other fruit trees, living plants or detached leaves in the field or laboratory. In this method, digital camera was used to cap ture the image of leaf and scale ruler, image processing software was used to get p ixels per square centimeter and the pixels of leaf image, then leaf area was calculated. The accuracy of new method was verified, the estimation error of apple leaf area was among 0.57% -0.80% and that of grape leaf area was among 1.05% - 1.43% , these results indicated that the new method could provide high accurate estimation for leaf area of fruit trees.

Key words: Fruit tree, Leaf area, Scale ruler, Digital camera, Image, Image processing software