Trends in Machine and Deep Learning Techniques for Plant Disease Identification: A Systematic Review

Diana-Carmen Rodríguez-Lira, Diana-Margarita Córdova-Esparza, José M. Álvarez-Alvarado, Juan Terven, Julio-Alejandro Romero-González, Juvenal Rodríguez-Reséndiz

This review explores the use of machine learning (ML) techniques for detecting pests and diseases in crops, which is a significant challenge in agriculture, leading to substantial yield losses worldwide. This study focuses on the integration of ML models, particularly Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), which have shown promise in accurately identifying and classifying plant diseases from images. By analyzing studies published from 2019 to 2024, this work summarizes the common methodologies involving stages of data acquisition, preprocessing, segmentation, feature extraction, and prediction to develop robust ML models. The findings indicate that the incorporation of advanced image processing and ML algorithms significantly enhances disease detection capabilities, leading to the early and precise diagnosis of crop ailments. This can not only improve crop yield and quality but also reduce the dependency on chemical pesticides, contributing to more sustainable agricultural practices. Future research should focus on enhancing the robustness of these models to varying environmental conditions and expanding the datasets to include a wider variety of crops and diseases. CNN-based models, particularly specialized architectures like ResNet, are the most widely used in the studies reviewed, making up 42.36% of all models, with ResNet alone contributing 7.65%. This highlights ResNet’s appeal for tasks that demand deep architectures and sophisticated feature extraction. Additionally, SVM models account for 9.41% of the models examined. The prominence of both ResNet and MobileNet reflects a trend toward architectures with residual connections for deeper networks, alongside efficiency-focused designs like MobileNet, which are well-suited for mobile and edge applications.