Deep learning applications for real-time and early detection of fall armyworm, African armyworm, and maize stem borer

The application of artificial intelligence for identifying Fall armyworm ( Spodoptera frugiperda ), African armyworm ( Spodoptera exempta ), and Maize stem borer ( Busseola fusca ) is critical due to the threats they pose to global food production. This study aims to evaluate and identify the most accurate and robust DL models in detecting and classifying these three significant agricultural pests. Seven traditional DL models: Convolutional Neural Network, Visual Geometry Group (VGG16), Residual Networks (ResNet50), MobileNetV2, InceptionV3, Deep Neural Network (DNN), and InceptionResNetV2 and the advanced You Look Only Once (YOLOv8) model were trained and tested using pest image datasets. The results showed that all traditional models except DNN had high accuracies ranging from 93.17% (InceptionResNetV2) to 99.43% (MobileNet) in training and testing, with losses ranging from 1.71% (MobileNetV2) to 24.99% (InceptionResNetV2). DNN had a slightly lower accuracy range of 55.27% to 56.39% and a loss range of 85.02% to 89.96% in training and testing. YOLOv8 emerged as the best and most robust model in the pest detection and classification tasks, achieving Precision and Recall scores ranging from 98.4% to 100% on single-class and multi-class classifications, making it highly suitable for real-world pest management applications. This research pioneers the use of DL for the classification and detection of maize stem borer, African armyworm and Fall armyworm, unique and separately addressing a critical gap in agricultural pest management in corn. With early and accurate pest identification, crop protection measures can be implemented efficiently. The findings lead to reduced crop damage and enhanced food security.