Real-Time Common Rust Maize Leaf Disease Severity Identification and Pesticide Dose Recommendation Using Deep Neural Network

Maize is one of the most widely grown crops in Ethiopia and is a staple crop around the globe; however, common rust maize disease (CRMD) is becoming a serious problem and severely impacts yields. Conventional CRMD detection and treatment methods are time-consuming, expensive, and ineffective. To address these challenges, we propose a real-time deep-learning model that provides disease detection and pesticide dosage recommendations. In the model development process, we collected 5000 maize leaf images experimentally, with permission from Haramaya University, and increased the size of the dataset to 8000 through augmentation. We applied image preprocessing techniques such as image equalization, noise removal, and enhancement to improve model performance. Additionally, during training, we utilized batch normalization, dropout, and early stopping to reduce overfitting, improve accuracy, and improve execution time. The optimal model recognizes CRMD and classifies it according to scientifically established severity levels. For pesticide recommendations, the model was integrated with the Gradio interface, which provides real-time recommendations based on the detected disease type and severity. We used a convolutional neural network (CNN), specifically the ResNet50 model, for this purpose. To evaluate its performance, ResNet50 was compared with other state-of-the-art algorithms, including VGG19, VGG16, and AlexNet, using similar parameters. ResNet50 outperformed the other CNN models in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F-score, achieving over 97% accuracy in CRMD classification—surpassing the other algorithms by more than 2.5% in both experimental and existing datasets. The agricultural experts verified the accuracy of the recommendation system across different stages of the disease, and the system demonstrated 100% accuracy. Additionally, ResNet50 exhibited lower time complexity during model development. This study demonstrates the potential of ResNet50 models for improving maize disease management.