Image Based Plant Disease Detection Using

Deep Learning Approaches

D.Karishma1,M.Ruksana Begum2, M. Kiran Kumar3, P. Raghunath Reddy4, B. Rishitha5
1
Assistant professor, Department of Computer Science, Rajeev Gandhi Memorial College of Engineering and
Technology Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh, India
2-5
Department of Computer Science, Rajeev Gandhi Memorial College of Engineering and Technology Nandyal,
Andhra Pradesh, India
 Abstract— Image-based plant disease detection is an
important task in modern agriculture, as it helps in
identifying diseases early and effectively, enabling
timely intervention. It presents a comparative study
between deep learning and classical machine learning
algorithms for the purpose of plant disease detection
using images. The existing methods for plant disease
detection often rely on classical machine learning
techniques, such as feature extraction and traditional
classifiers. These methods typically require manual
feature engineering and might struggle with complex
image patterns, limiting their accuracy. While they
have been useful, the rise of deep learning has shown
potential in various computer vision tasks, including
plant disease detection. Deep learning models,
especially convolution neural networks (CNNs), can
automatically learn relevant features from images,
potentially improving disease detection accuracy. The
proposed system aims to combine the strengths of
classical machine learning algorithms and deep
learning techniques for plant disease detection. The
deep learning models will be used to automatically
learn discriminative features from plant images, while
classical machine learning algorithms will be applied
on top of these features for robust classification. The
system, under consideration will undergo assessment
for its precision, velocity and computational
effectiveness guaranteeing its usefulness in detecting
diseases in environments. This endeavour aids in the
progression of timely disease identification supports
eco farming methods. Eases decision making, for
farmers and agricultural professionals.
Keywords—Machine Learning, Crop Diseases, Deep Learning
I.INTRODUCTION
Diseases in agricultural crops pose a significant threat,
reducing output and affecting the quality and quantity of farm
products. In India, where 70% of the population relies on
agriculture, this sector contributes 17% to the country's GDP.
Ensuring sufficient food production for a growing global
population is crucial, yet food security faces challenges from
climate change, declining pollinators, and plant diseases.
Smallholder farmers, dependent on healthy crops, suffer the
most, with reports of yield loss exceeding 50% in the
developing world, where over 80% of agricultural production
comes from them.
To address the challenge of feeding an ever-expanding
population, innovative agricultural approaches are necessary
as crop diseases significantly threaten food security, causing
reduced yields and economic losses. Timely and accurate
disease detection is vital for effective management, with
recent technological advancements, especially image-based
methods leveraging Smartphone cameras, offering scalable
solutions for real-time plant health analysis. Our study
introduces a deep learning approach utilizing convolutional
neural networks (CNNs) to swiftly and accurately identify
plant diseases from various leaf images, envisioning
widespread adoption of Smartphone-enabled crop disease
diagnosis globally.
Traditional disease detection methods involve complex
image pre-processing and feature extraction, followed by the
utilization of machine learning (ML) techniques like Support
Vector Machines (SVM), k-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN), and
Fully Connected Neural Networks (FCNN). However, recent
research trends favour deep learning (DL) methodologies due
to their superior performance, particularly with moderately
sized datasets, and the ability to eliminate the need for
manually engineered features. Hence, we conduct a
comparative examination between DL and classical ML
algorithms in plant disease classification.
II.DATASET
The paper utilizes the Plant Village Dataset, comprising
54,306 images of 14 plant species in 38 classes, each
representing a species/disease pair. The dataset includes 17
fungal, 4 bacterial, 2 viral, 2 mould, and 1 mite disease, along
with images of healthy plants. Images were captured under
various conditions with a standard digital camera, providing
diversity but with uniform background conditions due to
individual leaf cropping. While diverse, the dataset's uneven
image distribution, ranging from 150 to 5500 samples per
class, and reports of mislabelled samples pose challenges. The
dataset offers colour, greyscale, and segmented images, with
the paper focusing on segmented images for plant disease
detection.
Fig 1: Number of samples per class
III. RELATED WORK
The IEEE paper "Efficient Disease Detection of Paddy
Crop using CNN" by P. A. Harsha et al. employs CNN and
Raspberry Pi for efficient paddy crop disease detection. While
accurate and implemented on low-cost platforms, its
applicability is limited to paddy crops.[1]
SK Mahmudul et al.'s paper introduces a novel CNN model
for plant disease identification, featuring inception and
residual connections to reduce parameter count. However, its
accuracy is affected by an imbalanced cassava dataset,
suggesting potential improvements through data augmentation
or ensemble learning.[2]
Manish Kumar et al.'s paper utilizes exploratory data
analysis and machine learning to predict plant diseases from
soil sensor data, enabling early detection and intervention.
Challenges include robust data collection infrastructure and
capturing all disease factors solely through soil sensor data.[3]
An innovative methodology integrating IoT and machine
learning is proposed for predicting Blister Blight in tea plants,
offering real-time monitoring and improved crop
management. Concerns involve data privacy and scalability,
addressed through encryption, distributed architecture, and
adaptive learning algorithms.[4]
The survey explores automated disease diagnosis of herbal
plants via digital image processing, featuring image pre-
processing, feature extraction, and classification algorithms.
Challenges include image quality variability and limited
datasets, tackled through advanced enhancement techniques,
crowd-sourcing, and parallel processing for scalability.[5]
When utilizing classical machine learning (ML) algorithms,
certain pre-processing steps are imperative. The fundamental
steps are depicted in Figure 2. When utilizing classical
machine learning (ML) algorithms,
IV. EXISTING MODEL
When utilizing classical machine learning(ML)
algorithms ,certain pre-processing steps are imperative .The
fundamental steps are depicted in Figure 2.
Fig 2: (Classical machine Learning approaches)
A. Region Segmentation
In the context of image classification, typical pre-
processing steps involve standardizing images to uniform
dimensions and eliminating background and artifacts. As
the Plant Village dataset already contains segmented and
scaled images, these procedures were deemed
unnecessary. However, further pre-processing was
conducted by segmenting the images to extract
potentially infected leaf areas. This was achieved by
eliminating pixels with green channel values exceeding
those of red and blue channels. Examples of segmented
images and images with removed green pixels are
illustrated in Figure 2.
B. Feature Extraction
Feature extraction is a critical aspect of ML algorithm
implementation, often considered challenging yet pivotal.
In this study, texture features and general color statistical
features were employed. Texture features were obtained
by analyzing the grey level co-occurrence matrix
(GLCM), capturing spatial relationships of neighboring
pixels. Features such as correlation, contrast, energy,
homogeneity, and dissimilarity were derived from
GLCM. Color features were extracted through histogram
analysis, providing a comprehensive description of color
statistics in the image. Specifically, 120 texture features
and 96 color features were computed, totaling 216
features. GLCM analysis involved calculating 12
matrices for both full images and images with removed
green pixels, considering 4 distances and 3 angles. Color
features were exclusively calculated for full images,
encompassing 6 features per color channel. Additionally,
a histogram with 26 buckets per channel was utilized,
resulting in 78 features.
C. Support Vector Machines (SVM)
Support Vector Machines (SVM) are supervised
learning algorithms employed for classification or
regression tasks. SVM achieves classification by defining
a separating hyper plane in the feature space. It is capable
of linear classification and can extend to nonlinear
classification through kernel functions, facilitating
efficient transformation into high-dimensional feature
spaces. Multiclass classification with SVM can be
implemented using one-vs-all or one-vs-one strategies. In
this study, radial basis function kernel and regularization
parameter {(C=100)} were found to yield optimal results.
The one-vs-all approach was adopted, achieving an
accuracy of 91.74% on the test set.
 D. k-Nearest Neighbors In this section, we describe the proposed
methodology used to evaluate the effectiveness and
k-NN [7] is a very simple algorithm often used for efficiency of existing real- time detection schemes for
classification problems. It is both non-parametric (doesn’t plant disease detection. Deep Learning (DL) represents
have a fixed number of parameters) and lazy learning a subset of Machine Learning algorithms that employ
(doesn’t have a training phase). k-NN works under the multiple layers to learn features in a hierarchical
assumption that most samples from the same class are manner. Predominantly based on artificial neural
close to each other in the feature space. When networks, DL algorithms are at the forefront of
determining the class of the sample, k-NN will look at its contemporary Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions.
k closest neighbors and decide to which class it belongs These models have demonstrated exceptional capability
by the simple majority rule. Small values of k will allow in learning intricate patterns given sufficient data. One
for higher non-linearity but will be sensitive to outliers. of the primary advantages of DL algorithms is their
High values of k achieve good generalization but fail to ability to automatically learn relevant features from raw
fit complex boundaries. The best value for parameter k is data, obviating the need for manual feature engineering.
determined experimentally. For tasks like image recognition, Convolutional Neural
For this dataset, small values of k were shown to give Networks (CNNs) are commonly employed.
the best results. Varying k from 1 to 9 doesn’t change the
accuracy much, with best result being 78.06% much To contrast with classical models, we utilized a
lower than the SVM. We used k=5 in this work. Google Net model with parameters as detailed in [3].
This model leveraged pertaining on the Image Net
E. Fully Connected Neural Network dataset and was configured with the following
parameters:
FCNN is the simplest type of artificial neural networks. - Optimizer: Stochastic Gradient Descent
It is a supervised learning algorithm able to model highly - Learning rate: 0.005
non-linear functions. As opposed to SVM and k-NN, it - Momentum: 0.9
does not converge to the global optimum, but when - Weight decay: 0.0005
properly configured, it usually gives good enough results. - Batch size: 24
Important neural network configuration parameters are: - Number of epochs: 10
• number of hidden layers
• activation function Converging within 10 epochs, this DL model achieved
• number of neurons per layer an impressive accuracy of 99.32%, surpassing classical
• optimization method algorithms by a significant margin. We found the above all
In this paper, we used an FCNN with four hidden information through by doing the various experiments on
the given epochs to detect and Identify the disease of
layers with 300, 200, 100 and 50 neurons per layer,
various classes of plant Images as Dataset.
respectively. Activation function in hidden layers is a
rectified linear unit (ReLU), with a softmax in the output TABLE I
THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PREVIOUS STUDIES
layer [8]. We used L2 regularization with regularization
parameter equal to 0.3. Adam optimizer with default
parameters was used. This configuration gave us the Ref Technique Dataset Outcome Limitations
eren
accuracy of 91.46% on the test set. ce
[1] Disease Paddy Accurate Limited
F. Overall Workflow prediction, crop disease applicability
Raspberry Pi, detection to paddy
CNN, crop plants
The workflow involved pre-processing image data,
Artificial
extracting relevant features, and applying three distinct Intelligence
classical ML algorithms: SVM, k-NN, and FCNN. Each [2] Novel Imbala Reduced Utilization of an
algorithm was evaluated based on its accuracy in CNN nced parameters imbalanced
classifying healthy and diseased plant leaves using the model cassav , dataset leads to
based on a innovative lower accuracy
Plant Village dataset. The performance metrics indicated inception dataset architectur
SVM as the most effective classifier in this context, and e
achieving the highest accuracy on the test set. residual
connection
V.METHODOLOGY s
Deep Learning Based Approach [3] Exploratory Soil Early Requires robust data
data analysis, sensor disease collection
Machine data detection, infrastructure, may
 learning timely not capture all disease of features. The number of convolutional layers varies
interventio factors through soil depending on the size of input images.
n data
After the convolutional layer, pooling is performed
[4] IoT, Machine Sensor Real-time Data privacy
learning networks monitoring concerns, which is responsible for reducing the dimension of the
algorithms data , early scalability issues, convolutional feature map. The pooling layer performs
disease need for down sampling operations by reducing the dimension of
detection robustness in the feature map, which ultimately helps in reducing the
handling diverse required computational complexity to process the data.
conditions
Different types of pooling operations are there, such as
[5] Automated Herbal Non- Variability in image
disease plant invasive quality, limited max-pooling, min-pooling, average-pooling. The output
diagnosis, image diagnosis , labeled datasets, feature maps of the convolution or pooling layer are
classification dataset high computational transformed into a one-dimensional vector in which every
accuracy complexity input is connected to every output by weight. This layer is
also called a dense layer. There can be one or more fully
connected layers, and the final fully connected layer has
Based on the survey and from that we have gathered the same number output as the number of classes.
the above from all of their related work in terms of
techniques used, dataset they have been used and the Here's a brief description of how a CNN-based approach
outcome at last they recovered along with some works:
limitations also it have been provided in the above table
Convolutional Layers: CNNs consist of multiple layers,
in detailed description.
starting with convolutional layers. In these layers, Filters, also
known as kernels, are employed on the input image to extract
a variety of features. Each filter traverses across the input,
conducting element-wise multiplication and accumulating the
outcomes to generate feature maps.

Pooling Layers: Pooling layers are employed subsequent

Fig 3: Convolutional Neural Network Architecture
CONVOLUTION NEURAL NETWORK
A CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) is a prevalent
deep learning model extensively employed for various
tasks within computer vision, including image
classification, object detection, segmentation, and more.
CNNs excel in image-related tasks due to their capability to
automatically learn hierarchical feature representations
directly from pixel values, eliminating the necessity for
manual feature extraction.
A Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) stands out as a
type of neural network highly effective in numerous
computer vision tasks such as pattern recognition and
classification. CNNs possess the advantage of
automatically learning and extracting features from training
images, a departure from traditional methods requiring
manual feature extraction from images. Comprising
different layers including convolutional, pooling, and fully
connected layers, CNNs rely heavily on the convolutional
layer, the pivotal component responsible for feature
extraction from input images. Within convolution layers,
small arrays of numbers termed kernels are applied over
inputs, generating output termed feature maps. Various
convolutional kernels are employed to extract distinct types
to convolutional layers to decrease the spatial dimensions of
the feature maps while preserving crucial information.
Common pooling operations, such as max pooling and
average pooling, are utilized to down sample the feature maps
by selecting the maximum or average value within a specified
region.
Activation Functions: Subsequent to convolutional and
pooling layers, activation functions like ReLU (Rectified
Linear Unit) are employed to introduce non-linearities into the
network, facilitating the discernment of intricate patterns and
relationships within the data.
Fully Connected Layers: Following the extraction of
pertinent features by convolutional and pooling layers, the
feature maps are transformed into a vector and forwarded
through one or more fully connected layers. These layers
execute classification or regression tasks grounded on the
acquired features.
Output Layer: The ultimate stratum of the CNN delivers
the requisite output, contingent upon the specific task at hand.
In scenarios involving image classification, this layer typically
incorporates soft max activation, furnishing probabilities for
each class.
Training: CNNs undergo training utilizing back
propagation and optimization algorithms such as gradient
descent. Throughout training, the network adjusts its
parameters (weights and biases) to minimize a loss function,
quantifying the disparity between predicted and actual
outputs.
Fine-tuning and Transfer Learning: CNNs offer the
capability for fine-tuning or transfer learning. Fine-tuning
entails training the network on a new dataset with a
diminished learning rate, while transfer learning involves
leveraging pre-trained CNN models on novel tasks or datasets
by repurposing the acquired features.
Overall, CNN-based approaches have demonstrated state-
of-the-art performance in various computer vision tasks and
are widely used in both research and practical applications.
Fig 4: Proposed Methodology
This paper delineates a comprehensive methodology for
both the development and evaluation of deep learning models
tailored for image classification tasks.The proposed method
consists of several key steps: dataset preparation, data splitting
into training and testing sets, selection and implementation of
various deep learning models including Convolutional Neural
Networks (CNN), Support Vector Machines (SVM), K-
Nearest Neighbors (KNN), and Fully Connected Neural
Networks (FCNN), training and validation of the models,
performance metric evaluation, and visualization techniques.
Each step is described in detail to provide a comprehensive
guide for researchers and practitioners in the field of image
classification.
Dataset Preparation: This step involves acquiring and pre-
processing the dataset suitable for the image classification
task. Pre-processing may include resizing images,
normalization, and augmentation techniques to enhance the
diversity of the dataset.
Data Splitting: The dataset is segregated into training and
testing subsets to enable the training and assessment of the
model. The commonly used split ratios such as 70/30 or 80/20
are employed to ensure an adequate amount of data for both
training and testing.
Model Architecture Selection and Implementation: Various
deep learning models including CNN, SVM, KNN, and
FCNN are considered for the image classification task. Each
model's architecture is selected based on its suitability for the
dataset and the complexity of the classification problem. The
implementation of each model is described in detail, including
the configuration of layers, activation functions, and
optimization algorithms.
Training and Validation: The selected models are trained
using the training dataset and validated using the validation
dataset to optimize their performance. Techniques such as
cross-validation and hyper parameter tuning may be employed
to fine-tune the models and prevent over fitting.
Evaluation of Performance Metrics: Measures such as
accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and confusion matrix are
employed to assess the efficacy of the trained models. These
metrics offer valuable insights into the models' capacity to
accurately classify images and detect any potential class
imbalances or biases.
Visualization Techniques: Visualization techniques such as
t-SNE (t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding), PCA
(Principal Component Analysis), and activation maximization
are employed to interpret and analyse the learned features of
the models. Visualizations help researchers understand how
the models make decisions and identify any patterns or
anomalies in the data.
By adhering to this suggested methodology, researchers
and practitioners can methodically devise, assess, and
juxtapose deep learning models for image classification tasks,
fostering progress in the realm of computer vision and pattern
recognition.
VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Experimental results indicate that the CNN architecture
consistently outperforms SVM, KNN, and FCNN models in
terms of accuracy, showcasing its effectiveness in learning
hierarchical features from images. While SVM and KNN
models demonstrate competitive performance, particularly on
simpler datasets, FCNNs excel in capturing complex nonlinear
relationships within the data. Overall, the findings validate the
proposed methodology's efficacy in guiding model selection
and development for image classification tasks.
 Fig 7: Comparison of accuracies with CNN model

We have compared three classical algorithms (SVM, k-

Fig 5: Plot for Number of Epochs vs Accuracy
NN, FCNN), and one DL algorithm (CNN). Detailed
description of the used parameters was given in sections IV
and V. The implementation was done in Python, with the help
of the scikit-learn library for the classical algorithms, and
Keras on top of TensorFlow for the DL model. The code was
executed on the Google Colab platform which offers free CPU
and GPU resources, Training was done on the CPU for the
classical algorithms, and on the GPU for the DL model.
The dataset was split into training and testing sets with an
80-20 ratio (80% of the data utilized for training, and 20% for
testing). The metrics employed include accuracy, precision,
recall, and F1 score. Precision, recall, and F1 score are macro-
averaged.

Results are given in Table III:

Accuracy F1 score Precision Recall

Fig 6: Plot for Number of Epochs Vs Loss
SVM 0.916 0.894 0.902 0.89
Table II
k-NN 0.781 0.719 0.746 0.714

Proposed Accuracy FCNN 0.909 0.887 0.896 0.883

CNN
CNN 0.992 0.989 0.989 0.989
Before 92.54
Training Table III: Metrics of tested algorithms

After 96.54 We can see that k-NN has a much lower score than the
Training other choices. SVM and FCNN have comparable results,
although still much lower than CNN which was shown to give
the best results by far. The error rate for CNN was less than
ACCURACY OF PROPOSED CNN MODEL BEFORE 1%, compared to 8-9% for SVM and FCNN, and more than
AND AFTER TRAINING 20% for k-NN.

VII.CONCLUSION
 This paper highlights the superiority of the DL method
compared to classical ML algorithms. The simplicity of the
approach and the attained accuracy affirm that DL is the
preferred approach for addressing image classification
challenges with relatively large datasets. Since the achieved
accuracy of the DL method is already exceedingly high,
attempting to enhance its results on the same dataset would
yield minimal benefits. Further work with the DL model could
be done by expanding the dataset with more diverse images,
collected from multiple sources, in order to allow it to
generalize better.
The considered ML algorithms achieved relatively high
accuracy, but with error rates still an order of magnitude
higher than the DL model. Further work in improving
accuracy of the classical approach can be done by
experimenting with other algorithms and by improving the
features, as most likely they are the limiting factor of this
approach.
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