Integrating advanced deep learning techniques for enhanced detection and classification of citrus leaf and fruit diseases

In this study, we evaluate the performance of four deep learning models, EfficientNetB0, ResNet50, DenseNet121, and InceptionV3, for the classification of citrus diseases from images. Extensive experiments were conducted on a dataset of 759 images distributed across 9 disease classes, including Black spot, Canker, Greening, Scab, Melanose, and healthy examples of fruits and leaves. Both InceptionV3 and DenseNet121 achieved a test accuracy of 99.12%, with a macro average F1-score of approximately 0.986 and a weighted average F1-score of 0.991, indicating exceptional performance in terms of precision and recall across the majority of the classes. ResNet50 and EfficientNetB0 attained test accuracies of 84.58% and 80.18%, respectively, reflecting moderate performance in comparison. These research results underscore the promise of modern convolutional neural networks for accurate and timely detection of citrus diseases, thereby providing effective tools for farmers and agricultural professionals to implement proactive disease management, reduce crop losses, and improve yield quality.