Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) and related species of the genus
Senecio are the main source of pyrrolizidine alkaloids. These plants grow in
road verges, meadows and production fields and they show up in parties of
roughage: grass and alfalfa. Monitoring can be carried out during the field
production and harvesting stages. The final objective is to reject parties with
a too high contamination level. Identification tools can support the decision to
accept or refuse materials for the food production chain. A ragwort model has
been developed for the mobile application Determinator. This identification
model includes the relevant objects (species of the genus Senecio), and a
range of so called confusing objects in order to minimise the chance of false
positive identifications.
