Recently, deep-learning techniques have become the foundations for many breakthroughs in the automated identification of plant diseases. In the agricultural sector, many recent visual-computer approaches use deep-learning models. In this approach, a novel predictive analytics methodology to identify Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) and Pepper Huasteco Yellow Vein Virus (PHYVV) visual symptoms on Jalapeño pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) leaves by using image-processing and deep-learning classification models is presented. The proposed image-processing approach is based on the utilization of Normalized Red-Blue Vegetation Index (NRBVI) and Normalized Green-Blue Vegetation Index (NGBVI) as new RGB-based vegetation indices, and its subsequent Jet pallet colored version NRBVI-Jet NGBVI-Jet as pre-processing algorithms. Furthermore, four standard pre-trained deep-learning architectures, Visual Geometry Group-16 (VGG-16), Xception, Inception v3, and MobileNet v2, were implemented for classification purposes. The objective of this methodology was to find the most accurate combination of vegetation index pre-processing algorithms and pre-trained deep- learning classification models. Transfer learning was applied to fine tune the pre-trained deep- learning models and data augmentation was also applied to prevent the models from overfitting. The performance of the models was evaluated using Top-1 accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score using test data. The results showed that the best model was an Xception-based model that uses the NGBVI dataset. This model reached an average Top-1 test accuracy of 98.3%. A complete analysis of the different vegetation index representations using models based on deep-learning architectures is presented along with the study of the learning curves of these deep-learning models during the training phase.
Keywords: data augmentation; deep learning; plant viruses; transfer learning; vegetation index.