Enhanced detection of mango leaf diseases in field environments using MSMP-CNN and transfer learning

Mango trees affected by various diseases often exhibit distinctive leaf symptoms. Accurate and timely diagnosis is crucial for mango cultivation. Deep learning algorithms provide a viable solution for precisely detection of mango leaf diseases. However, two main challenges exist: environmental interference and the difficulty of collecting leaf image data from the field. To address these challenges, this study introduces a multi-scale and multi-pooling convolutional neural network (MSMP-CNN) model. The proposed model undergoes a pre-training phase, followed by transfer learning and fine-tuning, and ultimately focuses on identifying mango leaf diseases using real-world images. This model exhibits outstanding performance in identifying various mango leaf diseases. The model achieved an accuracy of 95 % on its own. After being enhanced by transfer learning and find-tuning, the model achieved an impressive accuracy of 98.5 %. To compare the classification performance with and without transfer learning and fine-tuning, t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) plots were used. Class activation mapping (CAM) heatmaps were also utilized to highlight class-specific regions of images, helping verify whether the model focused on the appropriate parts of the image for disease identification. These findings underscore the strong potential of the model combining with transfer learning and fine-tuning to advance mango leaf disease detection. In the future, the proposed model will evolve into a real-time, precise diagnostic system for mango leaf diseases, thereby transforming mango cultivation management from precision farming to smart agriculture.