An advanced deep learning models-based plant disease detection: A review of recent research

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Mar 21:14:1158933. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1158933. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Plants play a crucial role in supplying food globally. Various environmental factors lead to plant diseases which results in significant production losses. However, manual detection of plant diseases is a time-consuming and error-prone process. It can be an unreliable method of identifying and preventing the spread of plant diseases. Adopting advanced technologies such as Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) can help to overcome these challenges by enabling early identification of plant diseases. In this paper, the recent advancements in the use of ML and DL techniques for the identification of plant diseases are explored. The research focuses on publications between 2015 and 2022, and the experiments discussed in this study demonstrate the effectiveness of using these techniques in improving the accuracy and efficiency of plant disease detection. This study also addresses the challenges and limitations associated with using ML and DL for plant disease identification, such as issues with data availability, imaging quality, and the differentiation between healthy and diseased plants. The research provides valuable insights for plant disease detection researchers, practitioners, and industry professionals by offering solutions to these challenges and limitations, providing a comprehensive understanding of the current state of research in this field, highlighting the benefits and limitations of these methods, and proposing potential solutions to overcome the challenges of their implementation.

Keywords: convolutional neural networks; deep learning; image processing; machine learning; performance evaluation; plant disease detection; practical applications.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

AA acknowledges project CAFTA, funded by the Bulgarian National Science Fund. TG acknowledges the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, project PlantaSYST (SGA-CSA No. 739582 under FPA No. 664620) and the BG05M2OP001-1.003-001-C01 project, financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Bulgarian’ Operational Programme Science and Education for Smart Growth. This research work was also supported by the Cluster grant R20143 of Zayed University, UAE.