Enhanced corn seed disease classification: leveraging MobileNetV2 with feature augmentation and transfer learning

Abstract

In the era of advancing artificial intelligence (AI), its application in agriculture has become increasingly pivotal. This study explores the integration of AI for the discriminative classification of corn diseases, addressing the need for efficient agricultural practices. Leveraging a comprehensive dataset, the study encompasses 21,662 images categorized into four classes: Broken, Discolored, Silk cut, and Pure. The proposed model, an enhanced iteration of MobileNetV2, strategically incorporates additional layers—Average Pooling, Flatten, Dense, Dropout, and softmax—augmenting its feature extraction capabilities. Model tuning techniques, including data augmentation, adaptive learning rate, model checkpointing, dropout, and transfer learning, fortify the model's efficiency. Results showcase the proposed model's exceptional performance, achieving an accuracy of ~96% across the four classes. Precision, recall, and F1-score metrics underscore the model's proficiency, with precision values ranging from 0.949 to 0.975 and recall values from 0.957 to 0.963. In a comparative analysis with state-of-the-art (SOTA) models, the proposed model outshines counterparts in terms of precision, recall, F1-score, and accuracy. Notably, MobileNetV2, the base model for the proposed architecture, achieves the highest values, affirming its superiority in accurately classifying instances within the corn disease dataset. This study not only contributes to the growing body of AI applications in agriculture but also presents a novel and effective model for corn disease classification. The proposed model's robust performance, combined with its competitive edge against SOTA models, positions it as a promising solution for advancing precision agriculture and crop management.