Plant leaf disease detection using vision transformers for precision agriculture

Abstract Plant diseases cause major crop losses worldwide, making early detection essential for sustainable farming. Traditional methods need large training datasets, are expensive, and may overfit. In leaf image analysis, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have revealed promise in leaf disease de...

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Main Authors: Murugavalli S, Gopi R
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2025-07-01
Series:Scientific Reports
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-05102-0
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author Murugavalli S
Gopi R
author_facet Murugavalli S
Gopi R
author_sort Murugavalli S
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Plant diseases cause major crop losses worldwide, making early detection essential for sustainable farming. Traditional methods need large training datasets, are expensive, and may overfit. In leaf image analysis, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have revealed promise in leaf disease detection and classification. This research proposes PLA-ViT, or Precision Leaf Analysis with Vision Transformers, to improve agricultural monitoring. Vision Transformers (ViTs) outperform other neural networks because they employ self-attention to find global contextual information. The approach uses data augmentation, normalization, and bilateral filtering to increase generalization and image quality. Transfer learning using pre-trained ViTs reduces computing load and improves feature extraction. The model may be adjusted by hyperparameter tuning and adaptive learning rate scheduling for robust performance with minimal overfitting. In experiments, PLA-ViT outperforms other neural network-based models regarding detection accuracy, disease localization performance, inference time, and computational complexity. By attaching the system to IoT sensors, stakeholders may observe farms in real time and take timely measures like pesticide treatment or plant isolation. This novel method shows that transformer-based designs might help progress in precision agriculture.
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institution Kabale University
issn 2045-2322
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spelling doaj-art-be3a879c68af48799ffe6512255e52132025-08-20T03:45:25ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222025-07-0115111710.1038/s41598-025-05102-0Plant leaf disease detection using vision transformers for precision agricultureMurugavalli S0Gopi R1Faculty of Artificial Intelligence, K Ramakrishnan College of TechnologyFaculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Engineering CollegeAbstract Plant diseases cause major crop losses worldwide, making early detection essential for sustainable farming. Traditional methods need large training datasets, are expensive, and may overfit. In leaf image analysis, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have revealed promise in leaf disease detection and classification. This research proposes PLA-ViT, or Precision Leaf Analysis with Vision Transformers, to improve agricultural monitoring. Vision Transformers (ViTs) outperform other neural networks because they employ self-attention to find global contextual information. The approach uses data augmentation, normalization, and bilateral filtering to increase generalization and image quality. Transfer learning using pre-trained ViTs reduces computing load and improves feature extraction. The model may be adjusted by hyperparameter tuning and adaptive learning rate scheduling for robust performance with minimal overfitting. In experiments, PLA-ViT outperforms other neural network-based models regarding detection accuracy, disease localization performance, inference time, and computational complexity. By attaching the system to IoT sensors, stakeholders may observe farms in real time and take timely measures like pesticide treatment or plant isolation. This novel method shows that transformer-based designs might help progress in precision agriculture.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-05102-0Agriculture monitoringPlant disease detectionDeep learningVision transformersClassification
spellingShingle Murugavalli S
Gopi R
Plant leaf disease detection using vision transformers for precision agriculture
Scientific Reports
Agriculture monitoring
Plant disease detection
Deep learning
Vision transformers
Classification
title Plant leaf disease detection using vision transformers for precision agriculture
title_full Plant leaf disease detection using vision transformers for precision agriculture
title_fullStr Plant leaf disease detection using vision transformers for precision agriculture
title_full_unstemmed Plant leaf disease detection using vision transformers for precision agriculture
title_short Plant leaf disease detection using vision transformers for precision agriculture
title_sort plant leaf disease detection using vision transformers for precision agriculture
topic Agriculture monitoring
Plant disease detection
Deep learning
Vision transformers
Classification
url https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-05102-0
work_keys_str_mv AT murugavallis plantleafdiseasedetectionusingvisiontransformersforprecisionagriculture
AT gopir plantleafdiseasedetectionusingvisiontransformersforprecisionagriculture