Machine Vision–Based Deep Learning for Automated Crop Disease Classification in Precision Agriculture Article

Cherry is widely cultivated but remains challenging to harvest due to economic and ecological constraints, especially in developing countries such as Pakistan. Climate change, limited use of technology, and foliar diseases worsened by pesticide use further reduce productivity, particularly during fruiting. Conventional disease assessment depends on expert observation and grower experience, making it subjective and time-consuming. A comprehensive evaluation was conducted on the PlantCity dataset, which contains 5,714 high-density, full-color RGB images collected under challenging conditions and categorized into 5 classes. We compared three approaches: deep learning pre-trained, transfer learning, and a machine learning pipeline. Models were evaluated by accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, Cohen’s Kappa, inference time, FLOPs, and throughput. Grad-CAM was used to improve interpretability. Transfer learning using DenseNet169 achieved the highest performance, with 99.80% accuracy, 99.80% precision, 99.80% recall, and a Cohen’s Kappa of 99.74%. These results were significantly higher than those obtained by other deep learning architectures and handcrafted baselines. Grad-CAM heatmaps confirmed that the models focused their attention on pathological areas. The proposed transfer-learning-based framework, particularly DenseNet169, demonstrates state-of-the-art diagnostic accuracy and features a modular structure. This design enables deployment on both high-performance servers and resource-constrained embedded devices, thereby facilitating early disease detection in precision agriculture.