IAETSD JOURNAL FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH IN APPLIED SCIENCES, VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2, JULY /2017

ISSN (ONLINE): 2394-8442

PLANT LEAF DISEASE DIAGNOSIS USING IMAGE PROCESSING

AND MULTI-CLASS SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE CLASSIFIER
Nicodemus Songose Awarayi, Edward Danso Ansong, J. B. Hayfron-Acquah3
Department of Computer Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
awasong@gmail.com, engineeransong@yahoo.com, 3jbha@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT.

Farm Help is a system that would aid farmers to diagnose disease on the leaf of plants. The system captures digital
images of the plant leaf and identifies the disease using a multi-class support vector machine algorithm. Input images are first
segmented using there scolding and the K-means clustering algorithms. Color and texture features are extracted using grey scale
co-occurrence matrices for classification. The system achieved an accuracy level of 96% and takes about 14.921 seconds in
diagnosing plant leaf diseases.

Keywords-K-means Clustering, SVM, Image processing, classification, machine learning.

I. INTRODUCTION
Most economies are founded on agriculture and in Ghana; over 70% of the rural folks are involved in agricultural activities. Most
agricultural activities are being bedeviled by diseases associated with plants affecting harvest, household income and the sustainable
management of their farms due to the perpetual meager returns received at the end of every farming season [1]. Several studies have currently
focused on developing new ways of detecting plant diseases and providing remedy to these anomalies which predominantly affect the ecological
fauna.

Using image processing to detect plant diseases would contribute tremendously toward plant disease control which is a globally canker
especially in developing countries due to the lack of plant health facilities. Plant disease control starts from diagnosing the disease before a better
control mechanism is enacted. A research that would propose or implement a mechanism using image analysis that would assist in fast and
accurate plant disease detection would contribute a lot in tackling plant diseases

II. BACKGROUND
Agriculture, sustainability and food security has attracted intense attention, discussion and heated debates on virtually all international platforms
such as UN food and agricultural conferences, EU conferences, and international media and has received unimaginable investment from world
leaders from both international and domestic fronts. Agriculture and its sustainability have become the central cords to achieving food security in
millennia where population growth is at its fastest growth rate and technology acts as the catalyst to achieve food security.

The impact of agriculture on the growth of a nation and its development cannot be underestimated as it affects major aspects of the
economy and most vividly, it solves the problem of poverty. In achieving the millennium development goal 1, it is evident that food security
contributes tremendously to this effect [2]. This can be achieved with ease if the crop yield is very promising globally. A low crop yield would
definitely affect global food security and impacts negatively on livelihoods thereby compounding the problem of poverty. Several factors could
reduce the yield of crops but the most common of these factors is plant health [2]. Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) on the Graphic
Ghana website suggests that about 30 per cent of crop yield is lost annually due to plant health issues [3]. Another report from the Encyclopedia
Britannica indicates that about 30-50 per cent of crop yield is lost in less developed countries and this could degenerate into hunger and
starvation of citizens [4]. These percentages of losses are definitely unacceptable especially in low and middle level countries.

To Cite This Article: Nicodemus Songose Awarayi, Edward Danso Ansong and J. B. Hayfron-Acquah,.
PLANT LEAF DISEASE DIAGNOSIS USING IMAGE PROCESSING AND MULTI-CLASS
SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE CLASSIFIER. Journal for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences ;
Pages: 126-131
127. Nicodemus Songose Awarayi, Edward Danso Ansong and J. B. Hayfron-Acquah,. PLANT LEAF DISEASE DIAGNOSIS
USING IMAGE PROCESSING AND MULTI-CLASS SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE CLASSIFIER. Journal for Advanced
Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 126-131

To maintain the health of plants is to consider among several factors, the control of diseases of the plant. A quick and accurate
detection and diagnosis of plant disease is very vital so as to be able to apply an effective control measure. Diagnosing a disease takes the form
of observing symptoms of the diseased plant, a qualified classification and evaluation of facts, and a logical decision on cause of the disease [4].
This would require the service of experts in order to detect and diagnose diseases which has proven to be inefficient and time consuming [5].

It is evident that plant disease diagnosis is a serious issue for farmers to tackle especially those who have no knowledge on plant
diseases, so as to take proactive measures to ensure plants health that would improve crop yield. If there is a technology, to help farmers who
cannot access or afford the services of the agriculture extension officer or a plant disease pathologist, it would go a long way to improve food
security within the country. This would greatly enhance farming activities and assist extension officers and all stakeholders within the
agriculture sub-sector.

III. LITERATURE REVIEW

Vijayakumar and Arumugan [6] used digital image analysis to study an early detection of powdery mildew disease for betel vine
plants. The disease was detected by computing and comparing the standard deviation of normal and infected leaves. The standard deviation is
computed for both front and back view for each component of RGB. Miyatra and Solanki[7] also investigated the use of image processing to
detect cotton plant nutrient deficiency and diseases. This was achieved by using statistical region merging algorithm to perform image
segmentation, using template matching to detect diseases and using colour histogram algorithm to detect nutrient deficiency.

Suneeta et al. [8] also developed a mobile android application for detecting tomato leaf disease such as leaf spot and fungus disease
using image processing. They converted RGB images into HSI colour format and then applying the Otsu thresholding to accurately detect the
leaf spot and fungus diseases. Niu et al. [9] proposed a method to effectively detect common diseases of wheatusing K-means clustering
algorithm. The proposed procedure first converts an image from its RGB colour space to a Lab colour model. The Lab colour space image was
then clustered using absolute difference between each pixel and the centroid of the clustering in the Lab colour space. Their system achieved an
accuracy rate of 90% in detecting the diseases.

A research conducted by Bankar et al. [10] adapted a robust method in detecting and diagnosing plant leaf diseases. Their study used canny edge
detection and colour histogram to effectively diagnose the diseases. Vijay and Pawar [11] used a procedure of K-means clustering, and grouping
common features extracted using neural networks to identify diseases associated with cotton. They achieved an accuracy rate of 89.56% and it
takes about 436.95 seconds to identify the disease.

Amoda et al. [12] similarly developed software based on image processing to automatically detect and classify plant leaf diseases.
They segmented leaf images using K-means clustering algorithm and computed the texture featureswhich are passed through a pre-trained neural
network. Kaur et al. [13] also conducted a research using K-means clustering and SVM to detect and classify disease affected regions of plant
leaves. Leaf images were enhanced using histogram equalisation and then applying the K-means clustering algorithm to segment the images.
Features were extracted based on grey level co-occurrence matrices and classified using the support vector machine. The system was further
optimised using ant colony. Sujatha et al. [14] sought to identify a viable means of accurately detecting plant leaf diseases. Using the support
vector machine (SVM), they constructed a mechanism that accepted plant leaf images and detects diseases. K-means clustering algorithm was
applied to segment lesion regions of the leaf, statistical features extracted for training and classification using the SVM classifier.

Zhang et al. [15] proposed plant disease automatic detection for monitoring large crop fields, and thus automatically detects the leaf
disease symptoms as soon as they appear on plant leaves. The decided to segment images by converting the RGB images into HSV colour space
and then masking the green component of the leaf. Colour, textures and shape features were extracted and classified using K-nearest neighbour
classifier. Mengistu et al. [16] also endeavour to recognised Ethiopian coffee plant diseases using imaging and some machine learning
algorithms. They performed segmentation using K-means clustering and extracted texture features which were used to train and classify leaf
diseases withK-nearest neighbour (KNN), artificial neural network (ANN), Nave and a hybrid of self-organizing map (SOM) and radial basis
function (RBF) classifiers.

IV. METHODOLOGY
Fig. 1 indicates the procedure implemented in detecting and diagnosing plant leaf diseases. The system captures leaf images as inputs,
performs color thresholding, K-means clustering and then statistical features extracted for training and classification using a multi-class support
vector machine.

A. Image Acquisition

The study used digital leaf images of three crops cultivated in Ghana which includes tomato, bell pepper and potato. A total of 168 images
were used comprising 72 tomato leaf images, 48 bell pepper images and 48 potato leaf images. 40% of the images were used for training while
60% used for classification. Diseases such as tomato bacteria spot, late blight, and septoria leaf spot, bell pepper bacteria spots and potato late
blight leaf diseases were considered in the study. Leaf images were captured using a digital camera. Fig. 2 shows a sample of tomato leaf images
used for the study.
128. Nicodemus Songose Awarayi, Edward Danso Ansong and J. B. Hayfron
Hayfron-Acquah,. PLANT LEAF DISEASE DIAGNOSIS
USING IMAGE PROCESSING AND MULTI MULTI-CLASS
CLASS SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE CLASSIFIER
CLASSIFIER. Journal for Advanced
Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 126-131

B. Colour Image Thresholding

Colour there sholding was performed in other to delete the green compone
component of the leaf as well as image shadows and image background.
The RGB images were converted into YCbCr colour space and a threshold defined for each of the YCbCr colour space channels usi using histogram
settings. An image mask is then created based on the selected threshold values. The mask is deleted and the resultant image converted
c into RGB
colour space.

C. K-means Clustering

The thresholded image is further converted to Lab colour space, and then the K-means
means clustering algorithm applied to separate the input
image into three different clusters where the cluster which contains the disease symptoms would be chosen for features extraction
extrac and
classification.

Fig. 1 Proposed methodology

Fig. 2 Sample tomato leaf images

D. Features Extraction

Statistical features such as contrast, correlation, energy and homogeneity were computed using the grey scale coco-occurrence matrix
(GLCM) from the segmented images.. Other features computed from the images
image include mean, standard deviation, entropy, root mean square,
variance, smoothness, kurtosis, skewness and inverse different moment.

E. Training/Classification

The features extracted were used to train the support vector machine. The trained support vector machine
machine is then able to diagnose diseases
when an input image is encountered. Due to the binary nature of the support vector machine which hinders multi--classification, a multi-class
SVM was formulated in other to be able to train and classify more plant leaf
lea diseases.
129. Nicodemus Songose Awarayi, Edward Danso Ansong and J. B. Hayfron
Hayfron-Acquah,. PLANT LEAF DISEASE DIAGNOSIS
USING IMAGE PROCESSING AND MULTI MULTI-CLASS
CLASS SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE CLASSIFIER
CLASSIFIER. Journal for Advanced
Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 126-131

V. IMPLEMENTATION

The system was implemented using the MATLAB R2014a image processing toolbox. The system accepts an image input and first
performs thresholding which deletes portion
n of the leaf as shown in fig. 3.

Fig.
ig. 3 Output of thresholding for tomato and potato leaves

K-means
means clustering is then used to accurately separate the lesion portion of the
t leaf. This is shown in fig. 4.

Fig. 4 Output of k-means clustering

Features are then extracted and passed to the multi-class

multi support vector machine for classification. Fig. 5 shows a classified tomato
leaf disease as septora spot. A sample size of 168 leaf images were used for training and classifying the system developed. This comprises of
leaf images of various diseases of tomato,
mato, potato and bell pepper. The system achieved an accuracy rate of segmentation ranging from 90% to
100% for the various diseases. The system accurately diagnosed these diseases at an average rate of 96% which takes about 14. 14.9 seconds. The
system achieved
ed different accuracy of diagnosis for the various diseases studied. The system achieved an accuracy of 100%, 85.71 and 92.85 92.85%
for tomato leaf septoria spot, bacteria spot and late blight diseases respectively. Bell pepper leaf spot also recorded an accuracy
accura of 92.85% while
potato leaf septoria disease recorded 100% accuracy of diagnosis. Table I shows detail results of the disease diagnosis while fig. 6 shows a
summary. Table II also indicates the amount of time spent in diagnosing the various diseases.
130. Nicodemus Songose Awarayi, Edward Danso Ansong and J. B. Hayfron-Acquah,. PLANT LEAF DISEASE DIAGNOSIS
USING IMAGE PROCESSING AND MULTI-CLASS SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE CLASSIFIER. Journal for Advanced
Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 126-131

TABLE I
RESULTS OF VARIOUS PLANT LEAF DISEASE DIAGNOSIS

Disease Trained Test Accurate Accuracy

Sample Samples, Diagnosis, Rate (AD/TS
s TS AD * 100)
Tomato 10 14 13 92.85%
Late
Blight
Tomato 10 14 12 85.71%
Bacteria
Spot
Tomato 10 14 14 100%
Septoria
Spot
Normal 10 14 14 100%
Pepper
Leaf
Pepper 10 14 13 92.85%
Leaf
Spot
Normal 10 14 14 100%
Potato
Leaf
Potato 10 14 14 100%
Septoria
Spot
Total 70 98 94 95.91%

Accuracy Rate

105.00%

100.00%

95.00%

90.00%

85.00%

80.00%

75.00%
Tomato Tomato Tomato Normal Pepper Normal Potato
Late Bacteria Septoria Pepper Leaf Potato Septoria
Blight Spot Spot Leaf Spot Leaf Spot

Fig. 6 Accuracy of disease diagnosis

131. Nicodemus Songose Awarayi, Edward Danso Ansong and J. B. Hayfron-Acquah,. PLANT LEAF DISEASE DIAGNOSIS
USING IMAGE PROCESSING AND MULTI-CLASS SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE CLASSIFIER. Journal for Advanced
Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 126-131

TABLE II
AMOUNT OF TIME SPENT IN DIAGNOSING DISEASES

Crop Time Spent (seconds)

Tomato disease 14.045
Bell Pepper Disease 13.736
Potato 15.093
Average Time 14.291

VI. CONCLUSION
In this research the area of plant disease identification was studied. The Study focused on accurately diagnosing plant leaf diseases
within the shortest possible time. To achieve this, the study focused on improving upon the segmentation and classification processes which has
the most influence on the accuracy and speed of disease diagnosis. The developed system therefore implemented two segmentation algorithms
which includes thresholding and K-means clustering. This contributed to achieving very good segmentation of lesion regions of plant leaf
diseases. The system further used a formulated multi-class support vector machine which accurately identified plant leaf diseases at a rate of
about 96%. The results of the study are very promising and therefore indicate that the system would provide a viable means of recognizing plant
leaf diseases.

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