Machine learning application for predicting the strawberry harvesting time

Abstract

A smart farm is a system that combines information and communication technology (ICT), internet of things (IoT), and agricultural technology that enable a farm to operate with minimal labor and to automatically control of a greenhouse environment. Machine learning based on recently data-driven techniques has emerged with big data technologies and high-performance computing to create opportunities to quantify data intensive processes in agricultural operational environments. This paper presents research on the application of machine learning technology to diagnose the growth status of crops and predicting the harvest time of strawberries in a greenhouse according to image processing techniques. To classify the growth stages of the strawberries, we used object inference and detection with machine learning model based on deep learning neural networks and TensorFlow. The classification accuracy was compared based on the training data volume and training epoch. As a result, it was able to classify with an accuracy of over 90% with 200 training images and 8,000 training steps. The detection and classification of the strawberry maturities could be identified with an accuracy of over 90% at the mature and over mature stages of the strawberries. Concurrently, the experimental results are promising, and they show that this approach can be applied to develop a machine learning model for predicting the strawberry harvesting time and can be used to provide key decision support information to both farmers and policy makers about optimal harvest times and harvest planning.