Agroforestry, an integrated land-use practice combining trees and woody shrubs with crop and animal farming, offers significant ecological and agricultural benefits, including enhanced biodiversity, improved soil fertility, and increased resilience to environmental pressures. Despite its advantages, agroforestry faces challenges such as high initial investments, long maturation periods for trees, land tenure issues and a high level of complexity in technical management. Digital agriculture introduces advanced technologies and sensors, which provide precise data on soil moisture, nutrient levels, and plant health, enabling more efficient resource use and better farm management. Integrating these sensing technologies into agroforestry can address key challenges, optimize irrigation and nutrient management, and enhance overall system productivity and sustainability. This review explores the interaction between agroforestry and digitalization, highlighting case studies, and discusses the potential for these technologies to support sustainable agriculture and climate change mitigation. Increased investment in research and development, along with supportive policies, is essential for advancing the adoption of these innovative practices in agroforestry.

Agroforestry systems offer clear environmental and agronomic advantages, but their effect on plant–biotic stressor interactions remains poorly understood. Specifically, the shade from companion trees can create microclimates favorable to fungal diseases on herbaceous crops. This potential drawback may offset other benefits, highlighting the urgent need for advanced plant health monitoring in these systems. This study assessed the potential of hyperspectral reflectance to detect the single and combined effects of simulated tree shading and infection by the fungal pathogen Alternaria alternata on grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) under rainfed field conditions. Sorghum was grown either under full light or 50% shading conditions. Half of the plots were artificially inoculated with an A. alternata spore suspension (2 × 10⁸ CFU mL⁻¹), while the others served as controls. Leaf and ground-canopy measurements were acquired with a full range spectroradiometer (VNIR-SWIR, 400–2,400 nm) and UAV imagery covered the VIS-NIR range (400–1,000 nm) before the onset of visible symptoms. Permutational multivariate analysis of variance of leaf and ground-canopy data revealed significant effects of shading (Sh), infection (Aa), and their interaction (p < 0.05), allowing early detection of infection two days before symptom appearance, while UAV data showed only singular significant effects. Partial least squares discriminant analysis accuracy reached 78% at the leaf level, 90% at the ground-canopy level, and 74% (Sh) and 75% (Aa) at the UAV scale. Furthermore, vegetation spectral indices derived from the spectra confirmed greater physiological stress in shaded and infected plants, consistent with disease incidence assessments. Our results establish scale-specific hyperspectral reflectance spectroscopy as a powerful, non-destructive technique for early plant health surveillance in agroforestry. This advanced optical sensing capability is poised to illuminate complex stressor interactions, marking a significant step forward for precision agroforestry management.

Grapevine downy mildew (GDM), caused by Plasmopara viticola, is managed largely through repeated fungicide applications, yet evaluating spray-program performance is difficult because field infections are spatially heterogeneous. However, host physiological changes can precede visible symptom development. We tested whether standardized, high-throughput VNIR hyperspectral imaging of field-grown grapevine leaf discs can capture early optical changes associated with infection and discriminate program-linked mitigation. Leaves were collected from a 2025 vineyard trial in Geneva, NY (cv. La Crescent) managed under three spray programs (conventional fungicides, biofungicides, and untreated control). Leaf discs (≈87 per program) were excised, inoculated with P. viticola, and imaged at 0.5, 1.5, and 3.5 days post inoculation (dpi) using a custom built, automated, hyperspectral imaging microscopy platform (400–980 nm). No visible sporulation occurred at 0.5 or 1.5 dpi; sporulation was first observed at 3.5 dpi and occurred only in the untreated control, whereas no discs from either treated program sporulated. Multivariate spectral analyses showed significant separation by spray program and dpi, and disease-related spectral indices exhibited program-dependent trajectories, with treated discs showing attenuated optical change relative to the control. A random-forest classifier trained on pre-sporulation spectra (0.5 and 1.5 dpi; N = 169) predicted subsequent sporulation with 0.78 accuracy and 0.77 ROC–AUC (95% CI 0.68–0.85), highlighting informative bands across visible, red-edge, and near-infrared regions. Together, these results support outcome-linked, replicate-rich hyperspectral phenotyping of vineyard spray programs using field-derived material under standardized acquisition conditions.

Dollar spot is a severe and widespread turfgrass disease. Ultraviolet-C (UV-C) light treatment offers a promising management strategy, and its integration into autonomous mowers could reduce fungicide use, promoting sustainable and efficient turfgrass management. To ensure effectiveness and optimize intervention timing, monitoring is essential and hyperspectral sensing could represent a valuable resource. This study aimed to develop an innovative approach for the early detection and integrated management of dollar spot in bermudagrass by evaluating (i) the efficacy of an autonomous mower equipped with UV-C lamps in mitigating infections, and (ii) the potential of full-range hyperspectral sensing (350–2500 nm) for disease detection and monitoring. The autonomous mower enabled UV-C treatment with a field capacity of 0.04 ha h⁻¹, requiring 1.3 machines to treat 1 ha day⁻¹, and a primary energy consumption of 55.06 kWh ha⁻¹ for a complete weekly treatment. Full-range canopy hyperspectral data (400–2400 nm) enabled rapid, non-destructive field detection. Permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) detected significant effects of Clarireedia jacksonii (Cj; dollar spot pathogen) and the Cj × UV-C interaction. Partial least-squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) separated Cj+/UV+ and Cj+/UV− plots (Accuracy validation ≈ 0.73; K ≈ 0.69). Investigated spectral indices confirmed Cj × UV-C interactions. Future research should explore how to optimize UV-C application regimes, improve system scalability, and enhance the robustness of hyperspectral models across diverse turfgrass genotypes, growth stages, and environmental conditions.