Ensemble of Deep Learning Models for Multi-plant Disease Classification in Smart Farming

Plant disease identification at an early stage plays a crucial role in ensuring efficient management of the diseases and crop protection. The occurrence of plant ailments can result in substantial reductions in both crop yield and quality, which may cause financial setbacks for farmers and lead to food shortages for consumers. Traditional methods of disease detection rely on visual observation, which can consume a significant amount of time, be a labor-intensive, and often be inaccurate. Automated disease detection systems, based on techniques for machine learning have the potential to greatly improve the precision and speed of disease detection. This article presents a model for classifying plant diseases that combines the output of two transfer learning models, EfficientNetB0 and MobileNetV2, to improve disease classification accuracy. The PlantVillage Dataset was used to train and test the model under consideration, which contains 54,305 photos of 38 different plant disease classes, achieving an accuracy rate of 99.77% in disease classification. The use of an ensemble of deep learning models in this study shows promising results, indicating that the technique can enhance the accuracy of plant disease classification. Besides, this study contributes to the development of accurate and reliable automated disease detection systems, thereby supporting sustainable agriculture and global food security.