A deep learning approach for Maize Lethal Necrosis and Maize Streak Virus disease detection

Maize is an important crop cultivated in Sub-Saharan Africa, essential for food security. However, its cultivation faces significant challenges due to debilitating diseases such as Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) and Maize Streak Virus (MSV), which can lead to severe yield losses. Traditional plant disease diagnosis methods are often time-consuming and prone to errors, necessitating more efficient approaches. This study explores the application of deep learning, specifically Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), in the automatic detection and classification of maize diseases. We investigate six architectures: Basic CNN, EfficientNet V2 B0 and B1, LeNet-5, VGG-16, and ResNet50, using a dataset of 15344 images comprising MSV, MLN, and healthy maize leaves. Additionally, We performed hyperparameter tuning to improve the performance of the models and Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) for model interpretability. Our results show that the EfficientNet V2 B0 model demonstrated an accuracy of 99.99% in distinguishing between healthy and disease-infected plants. The results of this study contribute to the advancement of AI applications in agriculture, particularly in diagnosing maize diseases within Sub-Saharan Africa.