Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engappai

AgriDet: Plant Leaf Disease severity classification using agriculture detection

framework
Arunangshu Pal ∗, Vinay Kumar
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, Adityapur, Jharkhand, 831014, India

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: In the field of modern agriculture, plant disease detection plays a vital role in improving crop productivity.
Plant disease detection To increase the yield on a large scale, it is necessary to predict the onset of the disease and give advice
Severity classes to farmers. Previous methods for detecting plant diseases rely on manual feature extraction, which is more
Deep learning
expensive. Therefore, image-based techniques are gaining interest in the research area of plant disease
Segmentation
detection. However, existing methods have several problems due to the improper nature of the captured
Occlusion
Classification
image, including improper background conditions that lead to occlusion, illumination, orientation, and size.
Also, cost complexity, misclassifications, and overfitting problems occur in several real-time applications. To
solve these issues, we proposed an Agriculture Detection (AgriDet) framework that incorporates conventional
Inception-Visual Geometry Group Network (INC-VGGN) and Kohonen-based deep learning networks to detect
plant diseases and classify the severity level of diseased plants. In this framework, image pre-processing is done
to remove all the constraints in the captured image. Then, the occlusion problem is tackled by the proposed
multi-variate grabcut algorithm for effective segmentation. Furthermore, the framework performs accurate
disease detection and classification by utilizing an improved base network, namely a pre-trained conventionally
based INC-VGGN model. Here, the pre-trained INC-VGGN model is a deep convolutional neural network for
prediction of plant diseases that was previously trained for the distinctive dataset. The pre-trained weights and
the features learned in this base network are transferred into the newly developed neural network to perform
the specific task of plant disease detection for our dataset. In order to overcome the overfitting problem, a
dropout layer is introduced, and the deep learning of features is performed using the Kohonen learning layer.
After percentage computation, the improved base network classifies the severity classes in the training sets.
Finally, the performance of the framework is computed for different performance metrics and achieves better
accuracy than previous models. Also, the performance of the statistical analysis is validated to prove the results
in terms of accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity.

1. Introduction
Agriculture is the most primary and essential source of furnishing
national income based on a country’s quality and quantity of products,
especially crops and plants. According to the report of the Ministry of
Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MAFW) community, 58% of people
primarily depend on agriculture for their occupation, mainly in India.
Natural disorder factors such as pests, weeds, and diseases account
for 15%–25% of crop production losses. Monitoring of disease plays
a significant part in the successful development of crops on the farm
with the support of efficient farming procedures. In the beginning, a
specialist in that sector would manually monitor and analyse plant
illnesses. Several monitoring-based devices are used in plant disease
detection, but this adds complexity and raises hardware costs. Hence,
farmers with limited income cannot afford to buy such monitoring
devices for detecting diseases. Vishnoi et al. (2020), Sharath et al.
(2019), Ale et al. (2019). To provide a reliable treatment for the
disease, the diagnosis of leaf diseases must be incorporated into the
tools. Therefore, raising crops for the livelihood of the people and
increasing their productivity are the essential goals of a farmer. The
growth and yield of the crops are adversely affected due to plant
diseases. Hence, the diagnosis of plant diseases is a major concern
for the management and production of crops (Barbedo, 2019; Thomas
et al., 2018; Shruthi et al., 2019). This involves a huge amount of labour
and takes a long time to process. Techniques for image processing can
be used to determine plant diseases. Disease symptoms are often visible
on the fruit, stem, and leaves. The plant leaf is taken into consideration
for disease identification as it exhibits disease symptoms.
Numerous methods have been introduced by the researchers to
achieve better results in identifying the types of diseases in the
leaves. In earlier days, manual detection methods were used in the
prediction of crop diseases. This is where experts classify the disease

∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: 2018rscs010@nitjsr.ac.in (A. Pal).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2022.105754
Received 5 May 2022; Received in revised form 10 November 2022; Accepted 19 December 2022
Available online xxxx
0952-1976/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A. Pal and V. Kumar
and recommend a treatment plan. This process becomes challenging
due to the high cost of labour as the disease detection process is
difficult and has a high computational overhead. Golhani et al. (2018),
Sandhu and Kaur (2019). The image-based detection and classification
methods were determined based on Plant Leaf Disease (PLD) measures.
This reduces the labour costs as well as the processing complexity
(Radovanović and Ðukanovic, 2020; Indumathi et al., 2017; Nafi and
Hsu, 2020; Prathusha et al., 2019). Therefore, an automatic image-
based method for disease classification needs to be developed for
agricultural applications. Many state-of-the-art algorithms in image
processing, such as deep learning, neural networks, Support Vector
Machine (SVM), and Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT), are
used for plant leaf disease detection and classification. But most of
these systems are inaccurate and involve millions of parameters for
training the images to provide classification (Tete and Kamlu, 2017;
Goncharov et al., 2018; Sardogan et al., 2018). Also, convolutional
auto-encoder–decoder-based approaches are used for detecting plant
diseases. Further, the system incorporates hybrid techniques to detect
the disease spot in the leaves. These models, however, suffer from
multiple complex backgrounds, complex processes in training huge
datasets, a lack of multi-scale features, misclassified patches caused by
samples being affected by environmental factors, and a high execution
time due to the large training set. Hence, there is a need to develop an
efficient, cost-effective image processing system for accurate detection
and severity classification of plant diseases.
Motivation
In the current era, plant disease detection has become a major focus
in agricultural applications involving the improvement or modification
of soil, crops, livestock, poultry, fish, or shellfish and their resulting
products as they relate to human health using machine learning mod-
els (Ramesh et al., 2018; Daniya and Vigneshwari, 2019). Further,
it relates to bacteria, fungi, and viruses, as well as pest organisms.
This detection model will make it easier for many farmers to detect
plant diseases early, prevent plant waste, and protect disease trans-
mission from diseased to healthy plants. Several existing studies on
plant disease detection have used network models such as GoogleNet,
AlexNet (Jadhav et al., 2021), ImageNet, or VGG19 (Chen et al.,
2020). However, these models cannot update the network, and the
higher computational cost and network structure were relatively high.
Furthermore, automated systems based on the deep learning model
(Chohan et al., 2020) have several issues, including complex multiple
backgrounds, complex processes in training massive datasets, a lack
of multi-scale features, and extensive knowledge. As a result, failure
to detect and classify plant disease stage level is a major problem in
agriculture. Therefore, the existing methods have gaps in satisfying
the above requirements for image detection tasks from plant disease
images. Motivated by these facts and existing studies, the AgriDet
framework is proposed in this paper to accurately detect plant disease
and classify the stage level of plant disease with high accuracy.
The major contributions of the proposed AgriDet framework is
presented as follows,
• The AgriDet framework is designed for detecting diseases in
plants through image processing techniques. This incorporates the
conventional INC-VGGN as the base network with a new neural
network architecture built for disease prediction.
• The proposed framework performs pre-processing of images to
eliminate the issues in image acquisition, and further, a multi-
variate grab-cut algorithm is proposed for image segmentation
to tackle the occlusion problem when considering multiple back-
grounds in images.
• The Kohonen-based deep learning is performed to more accu-
rately learn the multi-scale features of the leaf disease by using
the previously learned features in the INC-VGGN model to im-
prove the detection accuracy. Further, overfitting is avoided by
using the dropout layer in the network.
2
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754
• Lastly, a pre-trained model based on conventional INC-VGGN is
employed to construct a Quantifying Disease Severity Classifica-
tion (QDSC) strategy that extracts the pre-learned features and
classifies the disease severity classes.
• The performance of the proposed method is compared with other
existing approaches under different performance metrics.
The structure of the paper is organized as follows: In Section 2 the
literature survey is presented. Followed by this the working process
of the AgriDet framework is explained in detail in Section 3. Sec-
tion 4 presents the performance evaluation of the proposed work.
The applicability of the proposed approach in real-time testing and
detection is discussed in Section 5. Finally, Section 6 provides the
overall conclusion, limitations and future works.
2. Literature survey
In this section, a survey of various existing plant disease detection
techniques is presented to better understand their workings, and flaws
are discussed as follows:
With the rapid growth of the population, agriculture is an es-
sential part of all countries’ energy sources. However, plant diseases
have an influence on the quantity and quality of crops for agricul-
tural expansion. In order to prevent and control plant diseases, it is
crucial to first diagnose them. The approach used for plant disease
detection is performed manually by professionals. However, it takes
more time to process. An automated plant disease detection model has
been developed to solve these problems. Deep learning (DL) models
have been successfully applied to a number of tasks in the context of
current image processing technology, including disease detection, seg-
mentation, recognition, and classification. For plant disease prediction,
traditional state-of-the-art methods such as panoramic image stitching,
SVM, Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), VGG-19, and VGG-M were
used (Karthik et al., 2013; Lee et al., 2015; Khan et al., 2020). To
solve the classification problems, Wang et al. (2016) introduced a Self-
adaptive Extreme Learning Machine (SaELM) model for obtaining a
unique optimal solution with a faster learning period. This model does
not need to have any parameters adjusted during the training process.
For the purpose of different image data, (Wang et al., 2022) designed an
automatic architecture named Expressive Neural Function Unit (ENFU)
that combines three networks (DensNet, GoogleNet, and ResNet) to
facilitate the joint search of CNN model depth. This architecture ex-
ploits evolutionary operators to improve the architecture’s operations,
frequently based on Monarch Butterfly Optimization (MBO). However,
these models lead to suboptimal results and cause major degradation
in classification tasks.
In Pantazi et al. (2016), a vital technique is employed for pattern
recognition using the One Class SVM (OCSVM) method to process
complex structures when the data is large. However, this method
is not suitable for real-time applications. Another author Mat et al.
(2016) used the Greenhouse Management System on Wireless Sen-
sor Network (GHMS-WSN). This system cannot be processed when
the data is large. Ferentinos (2018) introduced five basic CNN ar-
chitectures to detect plant disease, and further diagnosis is carried
out using deep learning methods. The CNN architectures considered
are AlexNet, AlexNetOWTBn, GoogleNet, Overfeat, and Visual Geom-
etry Group (VGG). Then, these architectures were implemented in
the Torch7 machine learning computational framework. However, this
method is not suitable for low-quality images and does not work
well for real-time applications. Another author Nandhini et al. (2018)
introduced the Web Enabled Disease Detection System based on Com-
pressed Sensing (WEDDS-CS) algorithm for detecting diseases in plants.
Initially, the images are acquired using the camera and segmented using
a threshold to extract only the essential regions to predict the skin
disease. Next, CS compresses only the essential segmented parts of the
image and passes it to the cloud. Further, the features are extracted
A. Pal and V. Kumar
from the image to predict the type of disease. But, this method is not
suitable for low quality images.
Moreover, Karthik et al. (2020) used attention based residual CNN
for effective learning of the features that cause disease in the tomato
plant. At first, residual learning is applied to find the essential features
for classification. Then, in the second type, the attention mechanism
is applied to the top of the residual learning network. Three types of
diseases are addressed using this model, such as the blight disease in its
early and later stages and the leaf mold disease. But, large number of
parameters are required in this model. Zhang et al. (2019) proposed
a hybrid clustering algorithm for segmentation in the detection of
plant disease. In this, the colour leaf images are split up into different
compacts and then clustered into super pixels. This provides the cues
for clustering to perform segmentation, and the speed of convergence
is increased by the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. The
initial parameters are found by combining the two Gaussian distri-
butions using the EM algorithm. This method leads to an increase
in computational complexity and time. Another author Liang et al.
(2019) presented an image-based Plant Disease Diagnosis and Severity
Estimation Network (PD2 SE-Net) for real-time disease diagnosis in
plants. This model comprises the residual structure with shuffle units.
Then, residual learning is performed for image classification using the
residual function. Finally, a shuffle block is placed to effectively analyse
the image, and the channel split operator is used to learn the features
in two branches. But the performance accuracy is low for some classes.
Chen et al. (2020) used Deep CNN-based INC-VGGN (DCNN-INC-
VGGN) for identifying the disease of the plant. Here, VGGNet with the
inception module is considered to perform disease classification. The
performance is improved by replacing the convolutional layer present
at the end with another convolutional layer. Also, the Swish activation
function is used in place of the Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU). This
is done to improve the selection of features in the image. But these
methods cannot work under complex background conditions. Another
author Iniyan et al. (2020) used SVM and Artificial Neural Network
(ANN) for detecting the plant disease. At first, image pre-processing is
carried out, and the image is converted into a suitable colour space.
Then, filtering is done to remove the noise. For this, the type of noise
is identified and then it is filtered. Finally, the disease classification is
carried out using SVM and ANN-based models.
From the existing studies, it is evident that the earlier techniques
suffer from several limitations involving: (a) the improper nature of
the captured image and complex background conditions that lead
to occlusion, illumination, orientation, and size (b) In several real-
time applications, cost complexity, training loss, overfitting problems,
and inaccurate detection occur; (c) misclassified patches occur due to
samples being affected by environmental factors; (d) long execution
times due to a large training set; and (e) irregular shape problems for
some images. Focused on these challenges, there is a need to design an
improved pre-trained model that can accurately detect plant diseases
and classify the stage level of plant disease with high accuracy.
The positive and negative aspects of each technique are shown
in Table 1. The proposed AgriDet framework findings, as shown in
Table 2, observe more fully covered and evaluated measures than
other method findings. The overall comparative analysis of existing
approaches and the findings of the proposed approach are summarized
in Table 2.
3. Proposed AgriDet framework
In the proposed framework, we have proposed an Agriculture De-
tection (AgriDet) framework that incorporates conventional INC-VGGN
and Kohonen-based deep learning networks to detect plant diseases and
classify the severity level of diseased plants. Initially, the preprocessing
step is performed to eliminate the unequal and improper size of the
images using image scaling, enhancement, and contrast adjustments.
To solve complex multiple background problems, the Multi-variant
3
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754
Grabcut algorithm (MGA) is used in a segmentation process to extract
the diseased part of the leaf region. Then Kohonen-based deep learning
is performed to learn the multi-scale features of the leaf disease using
previously learned features of the INC-VGGN model, responsible for
detection. Further, a Quantifying Disease Severity Classification (QDSC)
strategy extracts the pre-learned features and classifies the disease
severity into three classes: mild, moderate, and severe, using a conven-
tional pre-trained INC-VGGN network based on the severity measure
of Percentage of Disease Severity (PDS). Thus, the model achieves
good efficiency in detection, and the validity accuracy is increased
compared to other approaches when experimented on the PlantDoc and
PlantVillage datasets.
Plant disease detection and recognition are considered vital factors
in the field of agriculture. This image-based detection is useful to miti-
gate the challenges of using sensor based products to protect their crops
from diseases. For this, developing an advanced mobile application is
indispensable to assist the farmers. Here, the farmers can upload the
suspicious images of the crops and get the required feedback regarding
the disease. The development of the AgriDet framework involves the
following procedures:
• At first, the base network is determined, and the network weights
are acquired from the pre-trained CNN model. Here, INC-VGGN
(Chen et al., 2020) is used as the base network.
• Secondly, the new neural network is established with its own
layers by inserting, changing, or removing the layers from the
pre-trained network.
• Finally, the newly formed network is tuned to minimize the
occurrence of loss while performing suitable tasks.
The proposed AgriDet framework consists of two parts: the first portion
extracts the features using the pre-trained model, and the second
portion comprises the extended layers used in the extraction of the
high-level features. These feature maps are used in disease prediction.
Here, the CNN pre-trained for a particular task is reused to perform
the task of the second model. In this way, efficiency is improved and
training time is reduced by using the initialized weights from the
pre-trained network. These weights were previously acquired by pre-
training the model on public datasets such as ImageNet. Then, these
weights are used in the present model to perform disease detection. The
architecture of the proposed AgriDet framework is shown in Fig. 1.
The developed neural network is modelled here, which incorpo-
rates Kohonen’s associative multi-layer deep neural network to pro-
vide suggestions to the farmer. This allows for accurate diagnosis and
detection of plant diseases. This framework comprises five different
processes, such as data collection, pre-processing, segmentation, deep
neural model training, and real-time testing. The general block diagram
of the proposed AgriDet framework is shown in Fig. 2.
The proposed AgriDet framework involves five phases: data collec-
tion and dataset description, pre-processing, segmentation, proposed
improved base network for detection and classification, Quantifying
Disease Severity Classification (QDSC). These phases are described as
follows:
3.1. Data collection and dataset description
Leaf disease detection is initiated through the collection of images
of the leaves. Once the image is collected, the data is prepared to
make it suitable for further processing, since the raw image cannot
be processed. This is done to avoid the anomalies and errors that
occur during the image acquisition process. In this work, the images
from two different datasets are considered. They are the Plantdoc and
Plantvillage datasets, which comprise the single background image and
multiple background images, respectively. This leads to the occlusion
problem, and other distortions may occur due to poor illumination,
noise, etc. Therefore, it requires pre-processing before the detection
process.
A. Pal and V. Kumar Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754

Fig. 1. Proposed AgriDet architecture.

Fig. 2. Block diagram of proposed AgriDet framework.

4
A. Pal and V. Kumar Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754

Table 1
Positive and negative aspects of each technique.
Technique Positive aspects Negative aspects
Panoramic image -Reduces the computational -Fed low features as input
stitching approach complexity
(Karthik et al.,
2013)
CNN (Lee et al., -Learns discriminative features -High time-consuming due to high
2015) -Different plant species were level of training set
identified -Misclassified patches occurred
-High classification accuracy due to samples being affected by
environmental factors
SaELM (Wang et al., -Faster learning period -High computational overhead.
2016) -Does not need to adjust any
parameters during the training
process
ENFU-MBO (Wang -Less execution time -Leads to sub-optimal results
et al., 2022)
VGG-19 and VGG-M -Most prominent features were -Similar feature problem
(Khan et al., 2020) selected for feature extraction
-Less computational time
OCSVM (Pantazi -High recognition of each disease -Irregular shape problem occurred
et al., 2016) -Early stage diseases was for some images
discovered
GHMS-WSN (Mat -Obtain optimum irrigation -High energy consumption
et al., 2016) -Acquire crop production -Lack of disease sample
environment condition
VGG-CNN -Suitable for automated detection -Need expansion for the dataset
(Ferentinos, 2018) of plant disease -Large-scale on open-field
-Presence of real time images in cultivations
the training data
WEDDS-CS -Reduces the storage capacity -Repeat reconstruction process
(Nandhini et al., -High detection and classification -High processing time
2018) accuracy
Attention embedded -Process with more contextual -Numerous parameters needed for
residual CNN information detection
(Karthik et al.,
2020)
Hybrid clustering -Provide useful clustering cues to -Complexity of different regions.
algorithm (Zhang guide image segmentation
et al., 2019) -High practical value for disease
detection
PD2 SE-Net (Liang -Enable information among -Not applicable for agriculture
et al., 2019) channels sector
-Low computational cost
DCNN-INC-VGGN -Exacts high dimensional features -Not applied for real-time
(Chen et al., 2020) applications
SVM-ANN (Iniyan -Used small number of samples - Still the performance were
et al., 2020) and features prone to misclassification
-Low space complexity and time
complexity

Pennsylvania University provided the Plant Village dataset (Hughes
and Salathé, 2015). This dataset is appropriate for plant disease re-
search. Here, more than 152 crops were considered, and 38 classes are
included. There are more than 56,000 images collected from the same
source. This includes collecting images of crops grown locally with the
appropriate set of diseases to which the crop is exposed. It consists of
high-quality images collected from the plants. The image format is a
jpeg with a suitable width and height of 5472 and 3648, respectively.
Further, it is subjected to preprocessing to eliminate the occurrence of
noise, and the size of the images in the dataset is reduced further to a
size of 256 to 256.
The PlantDoc dataset (Singh et al., 2020) consists of nearly 29,000
images downloaded from the internet using the common and scientific
names of 38 different classes of plants. Filtering is also performed to
remove images that are inappropriate, such as non-leaf plants, out-
of-scope images, duplicate images, and lab-controlled images. Further,
every image is checked properly, and the labelling errors are removed.
Finally, after elimination, the PlantDoc dataset comprises 27 classes
with 13 species and 2,598 images. The statistics of the PlantDoc and
PlantVillage datasets are shown in Tables 3 and 4, respectively.
3.2. Pre-processing
In the pre-processing stage, three different processes are carried
out, such as image scaling, enhancement, and contrast adjustment
(Pooja et al., 2017). Due to the unequal and improper size of the
images, it cannot be directly used in image processing tasks. For plant
disease detection, the images collected are from different backgrounds.
Therefore, they require images to be resized to a fixed height and width
before being processed. Here, scaling is done in order to resize the
image, and the magnification process is called ‘‘up scaling’’. The image
resizing is done without any loss of image quality. Then, the resultant
resized image comprises a larger or smaller number of pixels. Next, for
the dark background images, the colour and contrast are enhanced to
make it easier for processing. The image segmentation can easily be
performed in the L×a×b format rather than the RGB format. Therefore,
the RGB image is converted into the L×a×b format.

5
A. Pal and V. Kumar Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754

Table 2 Table 4
Comparative analysis of existing approach findings (✔ : fully covered and evaluated; Statistics of PlantVillage dataset.
x: not evaluated). Sr.No. Category Classes Sample frequencies

Computational complexity
Papers 1. Fungi 18000

PLD severity measure

2. Bacteria 11000

Validation accuracy

Detection accuracy
3. Mold 3000

Training accuracy

Area under curve

Disease
4. Virus 5900

Validation loss

Average error
Training loss

Success rate
5. Mite 1900

Specificity
Sensitivity

Precision
6. Healthy 15 000
7. Apple 3500
8. Blueberry 1800
Karthik et al. (2013) x x x x x x x x x x x x ✔ 9. Cherry 1900
Plant Leaf
Lee et al. (2015) x x x x x x x ✔ x x x x x 10. Corn 3900
Khan et al. (2020) x x x x x ✔ x ✔ ✔ ✔ x x x 11. Grape 4000
Pantazi et al. (2016) x x x x x x x ✔ x x x x x 12. Orange 5800
Mat et al. (2016) x x x ✔ x x x x x x x x x 13. Peach 3000
Ferentinos (2018) x x x x x x x x x x ✔ ✔ x 14. Bell pepper 2500
Nandhini et al. (2018) x x x x x x x ✔ x x x x x 15. Potato 2200
Karthik et al. (2020) ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ x x x ✔ x x x x x 16. Raspberry 500
Zhang et al. (2019) x x x x x x x x x x x x ✔ 17. Soya bean 5000
Liang et al. (2019) ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ x x ✔ x x x x x 18. Squash 1900
Chen et al. (2020) ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ x ✔ ✔ ✔ x x x x x 19. Strawberry 1800
Iniyan et al. (2020) x x x x x x x ✔ x x x x x 20. Tomato 18 000
Wang et al. (2016) x x ✔ ✔ x x x x x x x x x
Wang et al. (2022) x x x x x x x x x x x x ✔
Proposed AgriDet ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ x x x x ✔
framework
Markov random field over the estimated pixel region that comprises the
energy function used in connecting the selected pixel regions, and then
Table 3 optimization is done based upon the graph cut algorithm to infer the
Statistics of PlantDoc dataset. values. This process will be repeated until convergence is obtained, and
Sr.No. Category Plant leaf Disease Sample frequencies then further estimates will be done to predict the misclassified regions.
1. Apple Rust 90 The PlantDoc dataset contains images obtained from the real cul-
2. Scab 99 tivation field, and therefore the acquired images comprise multiple
3. Bell Pepper Leaf Spot 70 backgrounds. Therefore, the background has to be discarded, and only
4. Corn Blight 185 the leaf region must be selected to perform disease detection. Here,
5. Grey Leaf Spot 70 we use the Multivariate Grabcut Algorithm (MGA) for extracting the
6. Rust 115
diseased part of the leaf region. The working process of the MGA is
7. Grape Black Rot 65 listed as follows:
Diseased
8. Potato Early Blight 118 Step 1 The pre-processed image of the diseased leaf is acquired.
9. Late Blight 100
Step 2: Apply the image segmentation algorithm to acquire the
10. Squash Powdery Mildew 130 specific diseased leaf region and discard the background. Further, Hue
11. Tomato Bacterial Spot 110 Saturation Value (HSV) is applied to the segmented image.
12. Early Blight 85 Step 3: The selected focal points of the leaf image are considered
13. Late Blight 120
14. Mold 90
the foreground, and their surroundings are considered the background.
15. Mosaic Virus 50 The unknown part of the image is considered either background or
16. Septoria Leaf Spot 150 foreground.
17. Yellow Virus 75 Step 4: A random region is selected around the diseased leaf target
18. Apple 95 area, and the pixels inside the target area are considered unknown and
19. Bell Pepper 65
the pixels outside are considered known.
20. Blueberry 115
21. Cherry 60 Step 5: Model the foreground and background as the Gaussian
22. Grape 70 Mixture Model (GMM).
Healthy No disease
23. Peach 125 Step 6: Allocate the most vital Gaussian components to the fore-
24. Raspberry 125 ground and background pixels in the image, respectively.
25. Soya Bean 75
26. Strawberry 100
Step 7: Create a new GMM based upon the learning procedure to
27. Tomato 65 develop the pixel sets.
Step 8: Build the graph and apply the GrabCut algorithm, and then
define the new foreground class.
Step 9: Repeat steps 4–6 until the disease region is completely
3.3. Segmentation
classified.
Step 10: Formulate l-components of the multivariate features such
Once the preprocessing is done on the leaf images, image segmenta- as colour, size, texture, and shape for the background and foreground
tion is done. This is particularly suitable for the PlantDoc dataset, which regions, respectively.
contains images with multiple backgrounds. The common algorithm for Step 11: Acquire the values of the GMM from the colour statistics
segmentation is GrabCut (Pantazi et al., 2019), which uses graph cuts of each cluster. The colour clusters that are homogenous possess low
for extracting the essential diseased leaf regions. The algorithm works variance and offer efficient segmentation.
by drawing the user-specific bounding box around the specific object Step 12: Then, image segmentation is carried out by modelling
that requires segmentation (say, the diseased leaf part). The colour these regions using multivariate features such as colour, shape, and
distribution of the estimated region and its background are estimated texture. Finally, the pixel set is generated with l-components corre-
from the Gaussian mixture model. This helps in the development of the sponding to the leaf region.

6
A. Pal and V. Kumar
3.4. Proposed improved base network for detection and classification
After segmentation, the images from the PlantDoc and PlantVillage
datasets are subjected to the training process. The base network is
initially placed to learn the characteristics of plant disease. Here, the
pre-trained model INC-VGGN is involved in the feature extraction. This
acts as an elementary feature extractor and eliminates the need for
training. In this model, the first few layers are responsible for extracting
the colour features. Here, inception is used to extract the features. Then,
during the feature extraction stage at multi-scale, the following layers
of convolution and pooling layers are used to extract rich features. To
speed up the network, the swish activation function is employed after
the third pooling layer. Followed by this, a global pooling layer and
a softmax classifier are placed in INC-VGGN. Using this base network,
the features of the plant diseases are learned more accurately.
The disease samples are then learned by the base INC-VGGN. This
can be extended to the newly developed neural network that is involved
in performing the disease detection task. The newly developed neural
network comprises the following layers: input, convolution, Kohonen
learning, pooling, soft max, dropout, fully connected, and output. In
this neural network, the process of disease detection is learned more
deeply in order to extract every vital feature found for each category
of disease. In order to avoid the misclassification problem, the texture,
shape, size, colour, and other features are learned more accurately.
This is carried out using the Kohonen associative multi-layer deep
neural network (Zhang et al., 2020). In this, Kohonen learning is
incorporated into the layers of the deep neural network. The functions
of the different layers are listed as follows: Each layer of the neural
network performs a unique function.
3.4.1. Convolution
The convolution layer performs the most representative function in
the deep learning model. It performs the vital function such as feature
extraction, image reconstruction and non-linear mapping. The feature
extraction involves extraction of blocks from the segmented image in
order to obtain the feature map for the input image. The equation to
perform convolution operation on the image is given as,
𝑓1 (𝑢) = max(0, 𝑣1 ∗ 𝑢 + 𝑒1 )
In this u represents the image, * denotes the convolution operator, 𝑣1
is the kernel for convolution and 𝑒1 denotes the neuron bias vector.
Then, the vectors of the features are transferred from the low
resolution to the high resolution space using the non-linear mapping
function as given as,
𝑓2 (𝑢) = max(0, 𝑣2 ∗ 𝑢 + 𝑒2 )
The final image is reconstructed with high resolution using the gener-
ated feature graph and this is illustrated as,
𝐹 (𝑢) = 𝑣3 ∗ 𝑢 + 𝑒3
Here, 𝑣3 performs the functions of the linear filter and the recon-
struction of the image follows a linear operation. During training, the
parameters are estimated and optimized. In order to find the mean
square error the following computation is done.
1 ∑ (
𝑛
) process is given by,
𝐸(𝛩) = ( 𝐹 𝑢𝑖 , 𝛩 − 𝑋𝑖 )2
𝑗 𝑗=1
The feature extraction from the segmented image is done at this layer.
It involves different mathematical operations to perform feature extrac-
tion. Initially, the size of the input image is reduced by means of a filter.
During every iteration, a shift in the filter is made and the image is
multiplied with filter value and obtains the summed up result finally.
Next, a new matrix is formed according to the input image size. Here
the convolutional operation is done with the input image of size 5 × 5
and the filter size is 3 × 3.
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754
3.4.2. Kohonen learning layer
In this layer, the competitive learning of the features is combined
with the supervised learning mechanism. This layer is responsible for
solving the problems in classification using the heuristic approach.
Here, the reference vectors possess weights and they are used to denote
which class is being learned. During the learning process, the com-
parison between the reference and the input vector is found and the
value 1 is assigned to a single reference vector and all other vectors
are assigned the 0. The reference vector obtains the value 1 and outputs
the class to which the input vector belongs to. Here, the winner utilizes
all approaches and the weight update is only made to the winning
reference vector during every iteration. In order to find the winning
reference vector, the Euclidean distance between the input and the
reference vector is found. This is given by the following equation.
{ }
‖ ‖
𝑑𝑖𝑠 = arg min ‖ 𝑢 − 𝑣𝑗 ‖ (5)
𝑗 ‖ ‖
where, u is the input vector, 𝑣𝑗 is the reference vector. If the classifi-
cation is correct the reference vector is updated by (6) otherwise the
update is made by (7) as given in,
𝑣𝑗 (𝑡 + 1) = 𝑣𝑗 (𝑡) + 𝜂(𝑡)(𝑢 − 𝑣𝑗 (𝑡)) (6)
𝑣𝑗 (𝑡 + 1) = 𝑣𝑗 (𝑡) − 𝜂(𝑡)(𝑢 − 𝑣𝑗 (𝑡)) (7)
Here, 𝜂 represents the learning rate and its value ranges from 0
to 1 and the value decreases monotonically with increase in time.
If a match is found between the classes of the reference and input
vectors, the reference point is stimulated towards the input vector else
it moved away from the input vector. The process is repeated till the
classification rate is achieved and the number of epochs is maximum.
3.4.3. Pooling
Pooling layer is used in performing the classification tasks. In plant
disease identification, the Kohonen layer learns the features of the plant
disease more accurately. The pooling layer present next to the Kohonen
layer classifies the type of disease based upon the features learned
(1) earlier. Also, it reduces the number of parameters which in turn reduces
the cost of computation required.
The pooling layer takes the largest vector (element) of every non-
overlapping regions present in the feature map. It performs the discrim-
inative task of disease classification from the image of the plant. The
disease prediction is done based upon what is present in the image and
does not focus on the location. The pooling layer reduces the size of the
(2) matrix obtained after the Kohonen learning. Here, the filter with stride
of 2 is commonly used.
3.4.4. Soft-max
(3)
The soft-max layer speeds up the training process. Also, it is respon-
sible for making the model less variant to the variations produced at
the input. Here, we use n-type soft-max layer in which the image is
classified under one type of n-categories. In this n denotes the different
types of diseases that occur in the plant. The loss produced during this
(4)
∑
𝑘
𝐿𝑜𝑠𝑠 = − 𝑣𝑖 log(𝑓 (𝑢)𝑖 ) (8)
𝑗
𝛬
Here, 𝑓 (𝑢)𝑖 represents the conditional probability 𝑃 (𝑥 = 𝑥𝑗∕𝑡𝑖 ) for
𝛬
training. In this for 𝑡𝑗 the predicted value is 𝑥𝑗 . For softmax activation
the probability function is given by,
𝑒 𝑡𝑗
𝑓 (𝑢)𝑖 = ∑𝑘 (9)
𝑡𝑗
𝑗 𝑒
7
A. Pal and V. Kumar
3.4.5. Drop out layer
The drop out layer is responsible for the reduction of spatial dimen-
sion and computational complexity and also avoids over-fitting issues.
At 𝑛th pooling layer, the features are mitigated and the computation of
the available features is given by,
𝑢𝑙𝑗 = 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛(𝑢𝑙−1
𝑗 , 𝑡) (10)
Here, down (.) denotes the function of down-sampling, 𝑢𝑙−1𝑗 represents
the feature vectors from previous layer and t denotes the size of pool-
ing. For real time applications in plant disease prediction, overfitting
seems to be a complex problem. Therefore, dropout layer drops the
neurons randomly during the process to avoid overfitting.
3.4.6. Fully connected
The main function of the fully connected layer is to incorporate all
the features learned in the previous layers. The final matrix obtained
is given to the fully connected layer. In this layer, the detection and
classification tasks are performed.
3.4.7. Output layer
This is the final layer in which the output is displayed. For any input
given to the AgriDet framework, the disease to which the leaf is exposed
is given as output. The farmers can visualize the type of disease through
this framework.
3.5. Quantifying Disease Severity Classification (QDSC)
After detecting the spots of diseased leaf area, an accurate analysis
of plant disease severity can cut to avoid the causes of diseases infected
by the insufficient drug usage, climate changes and environmental
pollution. In the present study, we used conventional pre-trained INC-
VGGN is employed to construct a Quantifying Disease Severity Clas-
sification (QDSC) Model that extracts the pre-learned features and
classifies the disease severity classes.
3.5.1. Quantifying Disease Severity Classification (QDSC) procedures
The QDSC procedure examines the assignment of plant diseased
images with the severity classes for training datasets. From the com-
pilation of training datasets, the severity can be classified into four
classes such as Normal, Mild, Moderate and Severe. With the help
of plant pathologist and disease detection techniques, the severity
classes observes the diseased leaf area and computes the rating score,
observations, maximum disease index for disease stage computation in
percentage. Based on the plant variety and disease types, the procedure
may change during percentage calculation. For this model, we compute
the Percentage of Disease Severity (PDS) to derive the QDSC procedures
for the assignment of plant disease images with its severity classes. It
is expressed as,
∑
Number of detected spots of diseased area per leaf
%𝑃 𝐷𝑆 = × 100
Total leaf area
(11)
After calculating the disease percentage level, the diseased leaf area is
used to derive the QDSC procedures for the assessment of plant diseased
images with the severity classes. This procedure classifies the several
level into four classes: 0 = normal, ≥ 30% = severe, < 30% = moderate,
< 20% = mild. The chosen percentages are decided based on number of
severity classes in the training sets. In the experimental work, we split
severity classes (normal, mild, moderate and severe) of images into four
parts for severity measurement. The disease grading standards used for
the QDSC is illustrated in Table 5.
The procedure for QDSC is presented as follows:
Step 1 The detected spots of diseased leaf area can be obtained from
the training set during the process of detection.
Step 2: After obtaining the detected leaf images, the disease severity
classes were accumulated in the training dataset. The disease grading
8
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754
Table 5
Standards for the assessment of plant diseased images with the
severity classes.
Disease grading Disease severity classes
PDS = 0% Normal
PDS ≥ 30% Severe
PDS < 30% Moderate
PDS < 20% Mild
Table 6
Pseudocode of the QDSC model.
Pseudocode 1: QDSC model
Input: Detected spots of diseased leaf images
Output: Quantifying disease severity classification results
1. Define set of detected spots in the diseased leaf area from the training process
2. Divide the training data into three severity classes with approximately equal
distribution of grading cases
3. Calculate percentage calculation of PDS according to the diseased area per leaf
4. Assign PDS level in the training sets:
4 a. Set PDS = 0%, as the disease grading ∈ normal level
4 b. Set PDS ≥ 30%, as the disease grading ∈ severe level
4 c. Set PDS < 30%, as the disease grading ∈ moderate level
4 d. Set PDS < 20%, as the disease grading ∈ mild level
5. Pre-trained conventional INC-VGGN model ← input images trained into the
conventional pre-trained INC-VGGN and SGD algorithm can reduce the loss during
iterations
4 Detection results ← detected diseased leaves are spotted using detection method
and fed it to the pre-trained conventional INC-VGGN model
5 Quantifying disease severity model ← classification results are obtained
steps for the assessment of plant diseased images with the severity
classes are represented as,
• If the PDS = 0%, the detected diseased leaf images belongs to
normal level in the training dataset.
• If the PDS ≥ 30%, the detected diseased leaf images belongs to
severe level in the training dataset.
• If the PDS < 30%, the detected diseased leaf image belongs to
moderate level in the training dataset.
• If the PDS < 20%, the detected diseased leaf image belongs to
mild level in the training dataset.
Step 3: Once the percentage of severity classes were computed, a
conventional pre-trained INC-VGGN network is used to classify the
tested plant disease images among three severity classes.
Step 4: For all diseased leaf images, the same procedure is repeated
until sufficient datasets were accumulated into the conventional pre-
trained INC-VGGN model, and the Stochastic Gradient Decent (SGD)
algorithm can reduce the loss and optimize the model during iterations.
Table 6 shows the pseudocode of the QDSC model.
4. Experimental results and discussion
This section comprises of details about the experimental settings,
dataset used, metrics, visualization results and comparison results.
4.1. Experimental settings
The proposed system is simulated using the Python tool and the
Kohonen based deep learning framework is accelerated using the GPU.
The experimental hardware setup comprise of Intel® Core™ i7-8750
CPU at 2.20 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060. This is used for both
training and testing the model. The specification of training parameters
used for the proposed method is shown in Table 7.
The proposed system is trained with the improved collection of
two different benchmarked datasets such as Plant Village and PlantDoc
datasets.
A. Pal and V. Kumar Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754

Fig. 3. (a–j). Sample images (Leaf types (crops)) from Plantdoc and Plantvillage datasets.

Table 7 models. By using our approach, the complex background image as well
Specification of training parameters.
as different position variations are also detected.
Parameters Values Fig. 3(a–j) shows the sample of images taken from Plantdoc and
Batch size 32 Plantvillage datasets, which is used for detecting the diseased leaf
Epoch 30
images, segmenting the leaf region, and evaluate diseased leaf image
Momentum 0.9
Learning rate 0.01–0.00001 during the training and validation process.
Weight decay 0.0005 Fig. 4(a–j) shows the segmented output image from the sample
Optimizer ADAM images. After preprocessing, the diseased part of the leaf region is
extracted using MGA algorithm for accurate segmentation. Also, the
segmented eye region segmented various position variations from the
4.2. Metrics used sample images.
Fig. 5(a–j) shows the leaf disease detection results of different
The three different metrics used for the evaluation of the proposed segmented images. From the evaluated results, the proposed model
model are accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. Here, the correct de- achieves accurate detection performance for all images. As shown in
tections are considered as True Positives (TP), misdetections as false Fig. 5, blue colour represents the detection output of leaf disease.
negatives (FN). Along with this false positives and true negatives are
also considered. 4.4. Comparative evaluation
𝑇𝑃 + 𝑇𝑁
Accuracy = (12) For qualitative evaluation, we used several deep learning methods
𝑇𝑃 + 𝑇𝑁 + 𝐹𝑃 + 𝐹𝑁
𝑇𝑃 for comparison. The evaluated results of the proposed approach are
Sensitivity = (13)
𝑇𝑃 + 𝐹𝑁 compared with existing methods in terms of accuracy and loss for
𝑇𝑁 different epochs of training, statistical results of PLD severity, and
Specificity = (14)
𝐹𝑃 + 𝑇𝑁 statistical measures of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for different
Here, TP and True negative (TN) denotes the correct and incorrect diseases from the collected Plantdoc and Plantvillage datasets. For
detection of number of instances that belong to the specific category. accuracy and loss comparison, the training and validation in terms of
False positive (FP) denotes incorrect classification of number of in- epoch is computed for disease detection from the plant leaf until the
stances that do not belong to the specific category but FN denotes segmentation is achieved. The performance evaluation is analysed in
the samples that do not belongs to specific category but are correctly the following sub-sections.
detected. The accuracy and loss comparison is made with the other existing
methods such as INC-VGGN (Chen et al., 2020), ResNet-50 (He et al.,
4.3. Visualization results 2016), VGGNet-19 (Simonyan and Zisserman, 2015) DenseNet-201
(Huang et al., 2017) and Inception V3 (Chollet, 2017) on comparison
This section presents the visual evaluation results that analyse var- with the proposed AgriDet framework. The accuracy of the AgriDet
ious experimental results on Plantdoc and Plantvillage datasets using framework is higher than the other existing methods and loss value
the proposed approach. In this, the proposed framework is simulated on is less than the other existing methods. The accuracy and loss values
diseased and healthy plant leaf databases with different leaf types such incurred during 30 epoch training is presented in Table 8.
as apple leaf, bell pepper leaf, corn leaf, grape leaf, potato leaf, tomato In the above Table 8, the computed values for the corresponding
leaf, potato leaf, corn leaf, tomato leaf, and squash leaf. Furthermore, training and validation process are presented clearly. Here, the measure
the proposed approach is processed under three main steps: prepro- of accuracy and loss is carried out for 10 and 30 epochs in training
cessing, segmentation, and detection. In many cases, the complete view and validation. The proposed AgriDet framework achieves a higher
of diseased leaf images could not be accurately detected using several accuracy and lower loss in all concerns. The performance of the existing

9
A. Pal and V. Kumar Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754

Fig. 4. Results of segmented image of various position variations from the sample images.

Fig. 5. Results of accurate detection output (where blue colour represents the detection of leaf disease).

Table 8
Accuracy and loss for different epochs of training.
Models TA % (10 VA % (10 TL (10 VL (10 TA % (30 VA % (30 TL (30 VL (30
epoch) epoch) epoch) epoch) epoch) epoch) epoch) epoch)
ResNet-50 65.19 64.67 1.0028 1.0031 70.41 69.67 0.8338 0.8442
VGGNet-19 65.19 66.67 1.1640 1.3254 74.20 74.83 0.9026 0.9162
DenseNet-201 80.27 76.33 0.5726 0.6875 84.13 79.00 0.4451 0.4987
INC-VGGN 93.78 90.17 0.2122 0.2567 97.57 91.83 0.0856 0.2409
Inception V3 65.19 66.67 0.4087 0.5234 92.14 85.00 0.2576 0.3717
Proposed AgriDet 95.64 93.24 0.125 0.2 98.9 96.00 0.03 0.15

Training Loss (TL); Validation Loss (AL); Training Accuracy (TA); Validation Accuracy (VA).

10
A. Pal and V. Kumar
Fig. 6. Validation and training accuracy.
INC-VGGN method is comparable than the other methods. However,
the result obtained by the proposed AgriDet framework achieves a
much influential accuracy and loss rate compared to INC-VGGN.
The validation accuracy and training accuracy of the proposed
method is shown in Fig. 6(a) and (b), respectively. Here, the different
number of epochs considered are 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 for varying
values of accuracy. The performance comparison is made for the other
existing methods and the increase in accuracy is due to the use of
the Kohonen based deep learning that learns the inherent features of
the disease more accurately. Hence, the accuracy is improved in the
proposed AgriDet framework.
The validation and training loss of the proposed method is shown in
Fig. 7(a) and (b). Here, the different number of epochs considered are
5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 for varying values of loss. The performance
comparison is made for the other existing methods and the decrease in
loss is due to the effective pre-training of the model for varying number
of diseases.
Statistical results of Plant Leaf Disease (PLD) severity for all test
images using the proposed approach, is shown in Fig. 8. The severity
levels of mild, moderate and severe levels are classified based on the
number of images in the training sets. For this case, statistics are
used to determine the number of detected spots of diseased leaves in
11
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754
the training sets and the PLD severity level in the testing sets. This
analysis can help the agriculture fields to control and prevent the causes
of diseases infected by insufficient drug usage, climate changes and
environmental pollution.
The measures of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity values for the
different diseases using proposed approach is presented in Table 9.
This tabulation presents the results for the sensitivity, specificity and
accuracy metrics used in the evaluation of the performance. For ten dif-
ferent diseases the evaluation is carried out. The result obtained reveals
the efficiency of the AgriDet framework and the misclassifications made
in disease prediction is reduced. Here, the detection and classification
for varieties of diseases are performed with improved accuracy.
4.4.1. Statistical evaluation
For statistical evaluation, the proposed AgriDet method is tested us-
ing Tukey’s honest significance test based on SPSS Statistics Version 26
(Su et al., 2020), and compared with ResNet-50, VGGNet-19, DenseNet-
201, INC-VGGN, Inception V3 to obtain the effectiveness under accu-
racy, specificity and sensitivity parameter values for classification of
ten different diseases from Plantdoc and Plantvillage datasets.
The Tukey’s honest significance test is performed to prove the
results among the classification models, based on the results obtained
A. Pal and V. Kumar Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754

Fig. 7. Validation and training loss.

Fig. 8. Statistical results of PLD severity using proposed approach.

12
A. Pal and V. Kumar Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754

Table 9 in the leaf. Using the pre-learned features for any kind of disease in
Measures of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for different diseases from the collected
the network, the type of disease is predicted more accurately, and the
datasets.
output is displayed to the farmer. Since the framework involves the
Diseases Sensitivity Specificity Accuracy
usage of a base pre-trained model and the newly developed neural
Apple rust leaf 54.23 88.94 85.75
network in training and feature extraction, the prediction is done more
Bell pepper leaf spot 87.61 90.59 94.50
Corn grey leaf spot 47.25 93.25 81.56 accurately. Therefore, misclassifications are avoided, and the farmer
Grape leaf black rot 89.35 96.54 79.00 can take precautions for the specific disease to acquire an enormous
Potato leaf late blight 90.72 95.47 85.25 yield. Hence, the model is suitable for real-time applications, especially
Tomato leaf late blight 56.47 97.32 96.76
in the fields of agriculture. However, in the training sets, the difference
Potato leaf early blight 64.56 92.14 95.03
Corn leaf blight 87.24 98.64 92.58 between the predicted and actual value models has varied due to
Tomato leaf bacterial spot 91.37 96.58 90.80 unexpected situations caused by high label errors, as it is impossible
Squash powdery mildew leaf 88.03 98.93 97.84 to ensure a correct prediction value when accessing the classification
Apple scab leaf 77.05 93.4 95.84
model. Hence, the proposed model fails due to high labelling errors
Corn rust leaf 68.88 85.5 96.7
Potato early blight 88.6 87.99 93.55 that cannot provide 100% accuracy in the disease severity classification
Potato late blight 91.66 89.77 94.66 model.
Tomato early blight leaf 89.65 91.43 96.44
Tomato leaf mosaic virus 82.44 84.67 95.77
Tomato leaf yellow virus 79.99 96.23 96..8 6. Conclusion
Tomato mold leaf 86.44 93.2 94.44
Tomato septoria leaf spot 89.66 77.99 96.99 This paper presents an AgriDet framework that incorporates conven-
Tomato target spot 87.99 92.4 95.33
Tomato yellow leaf curly virus 90.2 89.44 96.7
tional INC-VGGN and Kohonen-based deep learning networks to detect
Tomato spider mites two 91.33 91.22 96.88 plant diseases and classify the severity level of diseased plants. Initially,
spotted spider mite the preprocessing step is performed to eliminate the unequal and im-
proper size of the images using image scaling, enhancement, and con-
Table 10
trast adjustment samples collected from the PlantDoc and PlantVillage
Statistical analysis of different classification models (where bold font defines best datasets. To solve complex multiple background problems, a segmenta-
results). tion process is used to extract the diseased part of the leaf region using
Classification Accuracy Specificity Sensitivity the MGA algorithm. Then, to improve detection accuracy, Kohonen-
models based deep learning is performed to learn the multi-scale features of
ResNet-50 .08413443712324 .08744576651208 .08726509642466 the leaf disease using previously learned features of the INC-VGGN
VGGNet-19 .07537854124234 .07556237658433 .07543778695342
model. Further, overfitting is avoided by using the dropout layer in the
DenseNet-201 .07124523474365 .07151738437434 .07135543236354
INC-VGGN .07714581432354 .07734509167622 .07725644299076 network. Finally, using a conventional, pre-trained INC-VGGN model,
Inception V3 .06745634923475 .06745752486352 .06716073684363 a QDSC strategy extracts the pre-learned features and classifies the
AgriDet .05434679865230 .05426470327522 .05410437697603 disease severity classes. Hence, the AgriDet framework demonstrates
Note: Tukey’s honest significance test, smaller value (p < 0.05) is defined to be that the statistical results of PLD severity measures achieve higher accu-
statistically significant. racy for different diseases from the collected datasets. From the overall
facts, this framework observed that various computational intelligence-
based techniques such as MBO, Earthworm Optimization Algorithm
from 10 and 30 epochs during training and validation. As shown in Ta- (EWA), Elephant Herding Optimization (EHO), Moth Search (MS) Al-
ble 10, the observed results of existing classification models in terms gorithm, Slime Mould Algorithm (SMA), Hunger Games Search (HGS),
of accuracy, specificity and sensitivity are statistically insignificant to Runge Kutta Optimizer (RUN), Colony Predation Algorithm (CPA),
each other because which are all part of the same subset. The statistical and Harris Hawks Optimization (HHO) are generally used for image
significance level of 𝑝-value is defined between 0 and 1, where the segmentation, and these approaches perform better than traditional
𝑝-value is the function of mean and standard deviations of data. The approaches for image segmentation. This process is highly accepted
smaller value (𝑝 < 0.05) is defined to be statistically significant results. by several researchers in this domain and provides a demonstration
So the statistical analysis is carried out to prove the best classification for future research. In this research work, there are some limitations,
model. For this analysis, the accuracy, specificity and sensitivity p- which are mentioned as follows: (i) In the available datasets, there
values are measured between 0 and 1. The obtained results of each are no integrated and labelled images from practical scenarios. So the
metrics in terms of 𝑝-value for ResNet-50, VGGNet-19, DenseNet-201, images are conducted for training in a controlled environment, and
INC-VGGN and Inception V3 are 0.08, 0.075, 0.071, 0.077 and 0.067, (ii) the proposed method is unable to detect numerous diseases in a
respectively. According to Table 10, the obtained 𝑝-value of proposed single image or multiple occurrences of the same disease in one image.
AgriDet approach is 0.054 which is equally than the typical value As for future work, the proposed approach will further concentrate
0.05. Thus the classification model of AgriDet approach is statistically on detecting plant disease at different disease phases and different
significant than all other models. locations of plants. Further, it could be extended to implement the
plant disease detection system as a mobile application, which certainly
5. Discussion improves the farmer’s trust.

The vital purpose of the AgriDet framework is to support the farmers

Funding
in getting a clear result on the type of plant disease that has occurred in
the field. During real-time testing, any farmer whose field is affected by
There is no funding for this study.
the plant disease captures images of the crop. This image is sent as input
into the AgriDet framework, where disease detection is performed.
Initially, the image is subjected to pre-processing and segmentation. Ethical approval
Then, the learned features from the pre-trained model are employed in
the newly developed neural network. Here, deep learning is performed This article does not contain any studies with human participants
to learn the multi-scale information of the disease that has occurred and/or animals performed by any of the authors.

13
A. Pal and V. Kumar
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Arunangshu Pal: Conception and design of study, Material prepa-
ration, Conceptualization, Data collection and analysis, Methodology,
Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – re-
view & editing. Vinay Kumar: Conception and design of study, Formal
analysis, Investigation, Supervision.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Acknowledgement
All authors approved the version of the manuscript to be published.
References
Ale, L., Sheta, A., Li, L., Wang, Y., Zhang, N., 2019. Deep learning based plant disease
detection for smart agriculture. In: 2019 IEEE Globecom Workshops. GC Wkshps,
IEEE, pp. 1–6.
Barbedo, J.G., 2019. Plant disease identification from individual lesions and spots using
deep learning. Biosyst. Eng. 180, 96–107.
Chen, J., Chen, J., Zhang, D., Sun, Y., Nanehkaran, Y.A., 2020. Using deep transfer
learning for image-based plant disease identification. Comput. Electron. Agric. 173,
105393.
Chohan, M., Khan, A., Chohan, R., Katpar, S.H., Mahar, M.S., 2020. Plant disease
detection using deep learning. Int. J. Recent Technol. Eng. 9 (1), 909–914.
Chollet, F., 2017. Xception: Deep learning with depthwise separable convolutions. In:
Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.
pp. 1251–1258.
Daniya, T., Vigneshwari, S., 2019. A Review on Machine Learning Techniques for Rice
Plant Disease Detection in Agricultural Research System. Vol. 28. No. 13. pp. 49–62.
Ferentinos, K.P., 2018. Deep learning models for plant disease detection and diagnosis.
Comput. Electron. Agric. 145, 311–318.
Golhani, K., Balasundram, S.K., Vadamalai, G., Pradhan, B., 2018. A review of neural
networks in plant disease for 3cs compute communicate control (ICDI3c) detection
using hyperspectral data. In: Information Processing in Agriculture. Vol. 5. No. 3.
IEEE, pp. 354–371.
Goncharov, P., Ososkov, G., Nechaevskiy, A., Uzhinskiy, A., Nestsiarenia, I., 2018.
Disease detection on the plant leaves by deep learning. In: International Conference
on Neuroinformatics. Springer, Cham, pp. 151–159.
He, K., Zhang, X., Ren, S., Sun, J., 2016. Deep residual learning for image recog-
nition. In: Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern
Recognition. pp. 770–778.
Huang, G., Liu, Z., Van Der Maaten, L., Weinberger, K.Q., 2017. Densely connected
convolutional networks. In: Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision
and Pattern Recognition. pp. 4700–4708.
Hughes, D., Salathé, M., 2015. An open access repository of images on plant health
to enable the development of mobile disease diagnostics. arXiv preprint arXiv:
1511.08060.
Indumathi, K., Hemalatha, R., Nandhini, S.A., Radha, S., 2017. Intelligent plant disease
detection system using wireless multimedia sensor networks. In: 2017 Interna-
tional Conference on Wireless Communications, Signal Processing and Networking.
WiSPNET, IEEE, pp. 1607–1611.
Iniyan, S., Jebakumar, R., Mangalraj, P., Mohit, M., Nanda, A., 2020. Plant disease
identification and detection using support vector machines and artificial neural
networks. In: Artificial Intelligence and Evolutionary Computations in Engineering
Systems. Springer, Singapore, pp. 15–27.
Jadhav, S.B., Udupi, V.R., Patil, S.B., 2021. Identification of plant diseases using
convolutional neural networks. Int. J. Inf. Technol. 13 (6), 2461–2470.
Karthik, R., AnnisFathima, A., Vaidehi, V., 2013. Panoramic view creation using
invariant momentsand SURF features. In: 2013 International Conference on Recent
Trends in Information Technology. ICRTIT, IEEE, pp. 376–382.
14
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754
Karthik, R., Hariharan, M., Anand, S., Mathikshara, P., Johnson, A., Menaka, R., 2020.
Attention embedded residual CNN for disease detection in tomato leaves. Appl. Soft
Comput. 86, 105933.
Khan, M.A., Akram, T., Sharif, M., Javed, K., Raza, M., Saba, T., 2020. An automated
system for cucumber leaf diseased spot detection and classification using improved
saliency method and deep features selection. Multimedia Tools Appl. 79 (25),
18627–18656.
Lee, S.H., Chan, C.S., Wilkin, P., Remagnino, P., 2015. Deep-plant: Plant identification
with convolutional neural networks. In: 2015 IEEE International Conference on
Image Processing. ICIP, IEEE, pp. 452–456.
Liang, Q., Xiang, S., Hu, Y., Coppola, G., Zhang, D., Sun, W., 2019. PD2SE-Net:
Computer-assisted plant disease diagnosis and severity estimation network. Comput.
Electron. Agric. 157, 518–529.
Mat, I., Kassim, M.R.M., Harun, A.N., Yusoff, L.M., 2016. IoT in precision agriculture
applications using wireless moisture sensor network. In: IEEE Conference on Open
Systems. ICOS, IEEE, pp. 24–29.
Nafi, N.M., Hsu, W.H., 2020. Addressing class imbalance in image-based plant disease
detection: Deep generative vs. sampling-based approaches. In: 2020 International
Conference on Systems, Signals and Image Processing. IWSSIP, IEEE, pp. 243–248.
Nandhini, S.A., Hemalatha, R., Radha, S., Indumathi, K., 2018. Web enabled plant
disease detection system for agricultural applications using WMSN. Wirel. Pers.
Commun. 102 (2), 25–40.
Pantazi, X.E., Moshou, D., Tamouridou, A.A., 2019. Automated leaf disease detection
in different crop species through image features analysis and one class classifiers.
Comput. Electron. Agric. 156, 96–104.
Pantazi, X.E., Moshou, D., Tamouridou, A.A., Kasderidis, S., 2016. Leaf disease
recognition in vine plants based on local binary patterns and one class support
vector machines. In: 12th IFIP International Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Applications and Innovations. Springer, Cham, pp. 319–327.
Pooja, V., Das, R., Kanchana, V., 2017. Identification of plant leaf diseases using
image processing techniques. In: 2017 IEEE Technological Innovations in ICT for
Agriculture and Rural Development. TIAR, IEEE, pp. 130–133.
Prathusha, P., Murthy, K.S., Srinivas, K., 2019. Plant disease detection using ma-
chine learning algorithms. In: International Conference on Computational and Bio
Engineering. Springer, Cham, pp. 213–220.
Radovanović, D., Ðukanovic, S., 2020. Image-based plant disease detection: a compar-
ison of deep learning and classical machine learning algorithms. In: 2020 24th
International Conference on Information Technology. IT, IEEE, pp. 1–4.
Ramesh, S., Hebbar, R., Niveditha, M., Pooja, R., Shashank, N., Vinod, P.V., 2018.
Plant disease detection using machine learning. In: 2018 International Conference
on Design Innovations for 3Cs Compute Communicate Control. ICDI3C, IEEE, pp.
41–45.
Sandhu, G.K., Kaur, R., 2019. Plant disease detection techniques: a review. In:
2019 International Conference on Automation, Computational and Technology
Management. ICACTM, IEEE, pp. 34–38.
Sardogan, M., Tuncer, A., Ozen, Y., 2018. Plant leaf disease detection and classification
based on CNN with LVQ algorithm. In: 2018 3rd International Conference on
Computer Science and Engineering. UBMK, IEEE, pp. 382–385.
Sharath, D.M., Kumar, S.A., Rohan, M.G., Prathap, C., 2019. Image based plant
disease detection in pomegranate plant for bacterial blight. In: 2019 International
Conference on Communication and Signal Processing. ICCSP, IEEE, pp. 0645–0649.
Shruthi, U., Nagaveni, V., Raghavendra, B.K., 2019. A review on machine learning
classification techniques for plant disease detection. In: 2019 5th International
Conference on Advanced Computing & Communication Systems. ICACCS, IEEE, pp.
281–284.
Simonyan, K., Zisserman, A., 2015. Very deep convolutional networks for large-scale
image recognition. In: Int. Conf. Learn. Represent. pp. 1–14.
Singh, D., Jain, N., Jain, P., Kayal, P., Kumawat, S., Batra, N., 2020. PlantDoc: a dataset
for visual plant disease detection. In: Proceedings of the 7th ACM IKDD CoDS and
25th COMAD. pp. 249–253.
Su, W.H., Slaughter, D.C., Fennimore, S.A., 2020. Non-destructive evaluation of
photostability of crop signaling compounds and dose effects on celery vigor for
precision plant identification using computer vision. Comput. Electron. Agric. 168,
105155.
Tete, T.N., Kamlu, S., 2017. Detection of plant disease using threshold, k-mean cluster
and ann algorithm. In: 2017 2nd International Conference for Convergence in
Technology. I2CT, IEEE, pp. 523–526.
Thomas, S., Kuska, M.T., Bohnenkamp, D., Brugger, A., Alisaac, E., Wahabzada, M.,
Behmann, J., Mahlein, A.K., 2018. Benefits of hyperspectral imaging for plant
disease detection and plant protection a technical perspective. J. Plant Dis. Prot.
125 (1), 5–20.
Vishnoi, V.K., Kumar, K., Kumar, B., 2020. Plant disease detection using computational
intelligence and image processing. J. Plant Dis. Prot. 30, 1–35.
A. Pal and V. Kumar
Wang, G.G., Lu, M., Dong, Y.Q., Zhao, X.J., 2016. Self-adaptive extreme learning
machine. Neural Comput. Appl. 27 (2), 291–303.
Wang, Y., Qiao, X., Wang, G.G., 2022. Architecture evolution of convolutional neural
network using monarch butterfly optimization. J. Ambient Intell. Humaniz. Comput.
1–5.
15
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 119 (2023) 105754
Zhang, Y., Gendeel, M.A., Peng, H., Qian, X., Xu, H., 2020. Supervised Kohonen network
with heterogeneous value difference metric for both numeric and categorical inputs.
Soft Comput. 24 (3), 1763–1774.
Zhang, S., You, Z., Wu, X., 2019. Plant disease leaf image segmentation based on
superpixel clustering and EM algorithm. Neural Comput. Appl. 31 (2), 1225–1232.