Deep Learning Models to Determine Nutrient Concentration in Hydroponically Grown Lettuce Cultivars (Lactuca sativa L.)

Mostofa Ahsan,Erdem Küçüktopcu,Sulaymon Eshkabilov,Chiwon W Lee,Halis Simsek,Bilal Cemek

doi:10.3390/su14010416

Abstract

Deep learning (DL) and computer vision applications in precision agriculture have great potential to identify and classify plant and vegetation species. This study presents the applicability of DL modeling with computer vision techniques to analyze the nutrient levels of hydroponically grown four lettuce cultivars (Lactuca sativa L.), namely Black Seed, Flandria, Rex, and Tacitus. Four different nutrient concentrations (0, 50, 200, 300 ppm nitrogen solutions) were prepared and utilized to grow these lettuce cultivars in the greenhouse. RGB images of lettuce leaves were captured. The results showed that the developed DL’s visual geometry group 16 (VGG16) and VGG19 architectures identified the nutrient levels of lettuces with 87.5 to 100% accuracy for four lettuce cultivars, respectively. Convolution neural network models were also implemented to identify the nutrient levels of the studied lettuces for comparison purposes. The developed modeling techniques can be applied not only to collect real-time nutrient data from other lettuce type cultivars grown in greenhouses but also in fields. Moreover, these modeling approaches can be applied for remote sensing purposes to various lettuce crops. To the best knowledge of the authors, this is a novel study applying the DL technique to determine the nutrient concentrations in lettuce cultivars.

Highlights

Published: 31 December 2021Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) is grown under a wide range of climatic and environmental conditions, and it is unlikely that any one variety would be ideally suited to all locations [1].The high value of vegetable production encourages growers to apply high nitrogen (N)rates and frequent irrigation to ensure high yields
The study results demonstrated that applications of the visual geometry group 16 (VGG16) and MSVM model approaches resulted in 99.4% accuracy in classifying diseases in eggplants
At the beginning of the experiments, the lettuce cultivars were planted in Rockwool cube slabs, and two weeks old seedlings were transferred in 10-L plastic tubs containing different levels of N solutions with 20-20-20 commercial analysis (N-P2 O5 -K2 O)

Summary

Introduction

Published: 31 December 2021Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) is grown under a wide range of climatic and environmental conditions, and it is unlikely that any one variety would be ideally suited to all locations [1].The high value of vegetable production encourages growers to apply high nitrogen (N)rates and frequent irrigation to ensure high yields. Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) is grown under a wide range of climatic and environmental conditions, and it is unlikely that any one variety would be ideally suited to all locations [1]. The high value of vegetable production encourages growers to apply high nitrogen (N). Rates and frequent irrigation to ensure high yields. N is an essential macronutrient required for the productive leaf growth of lettuce. An optimal amount of N is critical to maintaining healthy green lettuce leaves, while high N concentration could be detrimental to leaf and root development. Excess N application increases both environmental concerns and the cost of lettuce production. The recent regulation requires all lettuce growers to keep track of the amount of fertilizers and irrigation water that are used in the field. An appropriate nutrient management plan with the prediction of optimal

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