Computers, Materials & Continua Tech Science Press

DOI:10.32604/cmc.2022.021875
Article

Deep Learning Based Automated Detection of Diseases from Apple Leaf Images
Swati Singh1 , Isha Gupta2 , Sheifali Gupta2 , Deepika Koundal3, * , Sultan Aljahdali4, Shubham Mahajan5
and Amit Kant Pandit5

1
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, University Institute of Technology, Himachal Pradesh
University, Shimla, 171005, India
2
Chitkara University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara University, Punjab, India
3
Department of Systemics, School of Computer Science, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India
4
Department of Computer Science, College of Computers and Information Technology, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099,
Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia
5
School of Electronics & Communication, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, 185320, India
*
Corresponding Author: Deepika Koundal. Email: [email protected]
Received: 18 July 2021; Accepted: 30 August 2021

Abstract: In Agriculture Sciences, detection of diseases is one of the most

challenging tasks. The mis-interpretations of plant diseases often lead to
wrong pesticide selection, resulting in damage of crops. Hence, the automatic
recognition of the diseases at earlier stages is important as well as economical
for better quality and quantity of fruits. Computer aided detection (CAD)
has proven as a supportive tool for disease detection and classification, thus
allowing the identification of diseases and reducing the rate of degradation
of fruit quality. In this research work, a model based on convolutional neural
network with 19 convolutional layers has been proposed for effective and
accurate classification of Marsonina Coronaria and Apple Scab diseases from
apple leaves. For this, a database of 50,000 images has been acquired by
collecting images of leaves from apple farms of Himachal Pradesh (H.P)
and Uttarakhand (India). An augmentation technique has been performed
on the dataset to increase the number of images for increasing the accuracy.
The performance analysis of the proposed model has been compared with the
new two Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models having 8 and 9 layers
respectively. The proposed model has also been compared with the standard
machine learning classifiers like support vector machine, k-Nearest Neigh-
bour, Random Forest and Logistic Regression models. From experimental
results, it has been observed that the proposed model has outperformed the
other CNN based models and machine learning models with an accuracy of
99.2%.

Keywords: Deep learning; convolutional neural network; apple leaves; apple

scab; support vector machine

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
1850 CMC, 2022, vol.71, no.1

1 Introduction
Apple also known as malus domestica is commercially the chief significant moderate fruit in
India and its industry is an essential constituent of India’s whole agricultural economy. India is
the sixth major apple manufacturer in the world. The agriculture of apple plants in farming has
become considerable more than merely an earning to feed ever increasing population [1]. Apple is
the most substantial energy source, in both human life and the other living creatures that exist in
the world. Therefore, identifying the infection at an appropriate time and accurately is the utmost
importance [2–4].
Pathology of plants can be perceived in numerous ways. Symptoms that are visible are
associated with certain infections that cannot be noticed at all times and several of them seem
only when it is too late when any precaution can’t be taken care [5–7]. Therefore, there is a need
to develop a technique to solve all of these problems [8].
By usage of image-processing in arrangement with recognition of pattern and classification
tools, a lot of the difficulties will be determined or reduced. Apple leaves mainly are affected
through many diseases like alternaria, black spot, Marsonina, Apple Scab and leaf miner pest.
Diseases like alternaria, black spot and leaf miner pest have been detected in the past by the
use of image processing but no work has been done on detecting Apple Scab and Marsonina
coronaria apple leaf diseases by taking live background of the diseased images. This research
work aims in detecting the two apple diseases, Apple Scab and Marsonina coronaria through
machine learning and deep learning. Leaf affected with Marsonina coronaria is shown in Fig. 1a
and Apple Scab disease is shown in Fig. 1b.

Figure 1: Diseased apple leaves: (a) Marsonina Coronaria, (b) Apple Scab

This novel saliency detection approach intends to detect the apple leaf diseases by training
the proposed CNN algorithm with the infected diseased apple leaf images. Database used is
composed of images taken from farms of H.P and Uttarakhand (India). Total of 50000 live
background images are collected, from the total database 25000 are of Marsonina coronaria
and 25000 of Apple Scab diseases with the help of State Agriculture Universities of Himachal
Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The collected data was also verified by the Horticulture department of
Himachal Pradesh. The proposed algorithm is compared with already obtainable machine learning
techniques and other CNN based architectures. The major contributions of the study are as
follows:
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• A database of 50000 apple leaf images Marsonina coronaria and Apple Scabs diseases
with live background have been collected from apple farms of two different states of India
Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
• The images of the dataset are increased to 2 lakh by using different augmentation
techniques and the images were saved separately.
• A Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based model is proposed having 19 layers with 6
convolutional layers, 3 max-pooling layers, 4 dropout layers, 3 Batch normalization layer, 1
flatten layer and 2 dense layers to detect above said apple diseases.
• The performance of the proposed model is compared with state of art models using various
evaluation metrics.
The remaining paper is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews the past literature on machine
learning and deep learning techniques. Section 3 gives description of materials and methods
and also the proposed methodology. Experiments results and comparison of machine learning
algorithms with the designed CNN are given in Section 4 and lastly the Section 5 gives the
findings and conclusion.

2 Literature Review
An early detection of diseases apple leaf enhances the possibility of better crop yield, and
there is a possible chance of recovery. Efforts are also being done to develop various algorithms
that can categorize apple leaf and apple fruit diseases accurately and efficiently.
The existing widespread machine learning classifiers has been technologically advanced for
early detection of apple diseases. The commonly used methods are built using support vector
machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbor (KNN) method and linear discriminant (LDA) [4]. The
studies developed an automated classification system based on initial segmentation and extraction
of features to describe the morphology or their arrangement. The study demonstrated a support
vector machine based classifier to detect infected potato plants providing the accuracy of 89% [5].
The authors had used Support Vector Machines (SVM) technique for classifying various plant
diseases and achieved high accuracies [6]. Chávez et al. proposed a method to detect foliar
symptoms of potato with the usage of reflectance in the regions of spectrum of light reflection
to be attained with a “trained” human eye [7]. While all mentioned classifiers were designed in
previous studies, to classify manually selected regions of interest. Machine learning algorithms are
in need of engineering in the field of feature selection or extraction and to organize the data
with discriminative information [8]. Sometimes, the power of discriminative is the method which
is inadequate to the competitive cost of identification of features for classification. Prior studies
introduced a new dataset of diseased apple leaf images as the studies carried down previously
were on small dataset. Among different approaches, the convolutional neural network is widely
used in the current era of research for the recognition of patterns in different images problems [9].
In [10], proposed a new identification method for disease in rice plants using deep convolutional
neural networks (DCNN). The dataset used contains 500 original images from fields of leaves of
rice plant, diseased and healthy both. The network was trained for the identification of ten main
diseases in rice plants. The average accuracy of 95.84% is attained by this proposed experiment.
In [11] a CNN based technique is proposed to identify the chemical stained images of apple leaves
and the technique used is a self-adaptive momentum rule for updating the parameters of CNN
model. The accuracy result obtained by the experiment done is 96.08%. In [12], the new system
is suggested for the identification of disease in leaves of cucumber plant using convolutional
neural networks. The accuracy achieved by the proposed CNN system by using the fourfold
1852 CMC, 2022, vol.71, no.1

cross-validation strategy is 94.9% in identification of cucumber leaf between disease leaves and
healthy leaves. In [13], a model using deep convolutional neural networks for the detection of
disease in plants. The different thirteen common plant type’s diseases were identified using the
proposed CNN model. The accuracy achieved by the proposed network is 96.3%. In [14], a CNN
based model is designed for the detection of twenty six different types of diseases and crop species
fourteen in number using the dataset which is publically available of healthy and diseased leaves.
Also the study showed that convolutional neural networks are able to exceed outmoded texture
descriptors. Moreover, only a little work is done in this field of research which has opened the
doors to exploration by using deep learning methods to propose the identification of diseases in
apple leaves automatically [15].
The key aim of this research is to propose a computerized model to examine the diseased
images of apple leaves. This involves an algorithm which will automatically detect Marsonina
Coronaria and Apple Scab from diseased apple images.

3 Proposed Methodology
Here, a CNN based automatic detection model system is developed for automatic classi-
fication of diseased apple leaf images into Marsonina Coronaria and Apple Scab. A research
methodology has been proposed in the following sections which are divided into various stages as
discussed below.

3.1 Dataset Preparation

The two most common diseases in apple leaves are Marsonina Coronaria and Apple Scab.
Farmers usually detect these diseases through naked eye, leading to a lot of faulty detection of
diseases. The dataset used for the experiment of identification of apple leaf diseases is taken from
fields of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand states of India. Live background images have been
captured with a camera of 12 megapixels. This dataset consists of a total of 50,000 images of size
50 × 50 × 3, in which 25,000 Marsonina Coronaria leaves and 25,000 Apple Scab leaves. Fig. 2
shows diseased apple leaf images of Marsonina Coronaria and Fig. 3 shows diseased apple leaf
images of Apple Scab.

Figure 2: Marsonina diseased apple leaf images: (a) with Live Background, (b) with Black
Background, (c) with White Background

3.2 Hardware and Software Used

In order to implement the proposed methodology, a database has been collected from fields
of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand states of India. A classification system is developed using
Python 3.7 software containing libraries which are tensorflow and opencv that run on system with
Intel® Core(TM) i3 processor with specifications configuration given in the Tab. 1.
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Figure 3: Apple scab diseased images (a) with Live Background, (b) with Black Background, (c)
with White Background

Table 1: System configuration

Component Specifications
Laptop Processor Intel (R) Core (TM) i3-7100U CPU @ 2.40 GHz
RAM 6 GB
CPU Inspiron 15
Software Python 3.7
Data set collected From fields of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand

3.3 Data Normalization

Normalization is performed on the given dataset to sustain value and its stability in the
architecture of CNN and is a very important step as preprocessing stem in processing of the
images. By using this step, proposed CNN models are likely to learn more rapidly. In this
proposed research, the pixel value of the image at input side has been normalized in the range
between 0–1. The dataset being used contains the images that are 0–1 scaled images and this
rescaling of the images is done by dividing every pixel of image with 255. Each diseased apple
image is converted into a single vector form of 7500x1. The machine is trained with the converted
single vector form of every single image in the given training database [16–18]. After the training
of the machine, testing is done with testing images.

3.4 Data Augmentation

The different CNN modes in deep learning works with larger number of dataset for the
training of the architecture designed [19–21]. The images taken from the fields are very less
in numbers of 50,000 that why the major concern is to increase the database as it’s tough to
arrange more number of images from the field which is a tedious task. To come up with this
problem the technique data augmentation is performed which helps is increases the number of
images by performing some transformation by keeping the class labels and pixel values same as
original image [22–25]. The transformations made on the original images are illustrated in Fig. 4.
The images were transformed using the various techniques as given: (1) images were scaled by a
measure of 15%, (2) Gaussian noise was added with mean zero and 0.25 variance, (3) horizontal
flipping was performed, and (4) original image was rotated by the angles of 30 degrees clockwise.
All these techniques had been practical done on the given samples of training and some example
results for each the proposed technique of data augmentation is shown in Fig. 5 for Apple Scab
and in Fig. 6 for Marsonina Coronaria.
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Figure 4: Different augmentation techniques used in this study

Figure 5: Result of data augmentation of apple scab image: (a) Original image; (b) Rotation
clockwise; (c) Horizontal flipping; (d) Scaling by 15%; (e) Gaussian noise

Figure 6: Result of data augmentation of marsonina coronaria image: (a) Original image; (b)
Rotation clockwise; (c) Horizontal flipping; (d) Scaling by 15%; (e) Gaussian noise

3.5 Design of CNN Based Models

For the detection of Marsonina coronaria and Apple Scab diseases in apple leaves, a CNN
based model is proposed which is divided in three categories; CNN-A Model, CNN-B Model and
CNN-C model. CNN-A model consists of 8 layers whereas CNN-B model consists of 9 layers
and CNN-C consists of a total of 19 layers. Following subsections describe these models in detail
along with their block diagrams and the total number of parameters used for each layer.
CMC, 2022, vol.71, no.1 1855

3.5.1 Design of CNN-A Model

A block diagram representation of the CNN-A model is shown in Fig. 7 in which a total
8 layers are used. In CNN-A model, a convolutional block is present consisting of two (3 × 3)
convolutional layers and a dropout (0.25). A fine-tuned fully connected layer is also present which
consists of a flatten layer, dense_1 layer, dropout layer and dense_2 layer. Tab. 2 describes the size
of filter, number of filters, input image size, output image size and total number of parameters
used at each layer for the designed CNN-A.

Figure 7: Convolutional neural network CNN-A with 8 layers

Table 2: Parameters of CNN-A with 8 layers

S. No. Layers Input Filter No. of Activation Output Parameters
image size filter function
size
1 Input image 50 ∗ 50 ∗ 3 – – – – –
2 Convolutional 50 ∗ 50 ∗ 3 3∗3 32 ReLU 48 ∗ 48 ∗ 32 896
3 Convolutional 48 ∗ 48 ∗ 32 3∗3 64 ReLU 46 ∗ 46 ∗ 64 18496
4 Maxpooling 46 ∗ 46 ∗ 64 Poolsize (2 ∗ 2) – 23 ∗ 23 ∗ 64 0
5 Dropout 23 ∗ 23 ∗ 64 Dropout (0.25) – – 23 ∗ 23 ∗ 64 0
6 Flatten 23 ∗ 23 ∗ 64 – – – 33856 0
7 Dense 33856 128 ReLU 128 4333696
8 Dropout 128 Dropout (0.5) – – 128 0
9 Dense 128 Num_Clas Softmax 2 258
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3.5.2 Design of CNN-B Model

The block diagram representation of CNN-B model is shown in Fig. 8 which consists of a
total 9 layers. The detailed description of the model is given in Tab. 3, which describes the size
of filter, number of filters, input image size, output image size and total number of parameters
used at each layer. In this model, a maxpool layer is added after the first convolution layer and
a fine-tuned fully connected layer is also present which consists of a flatten layer, dense_1 layer,
dropout layer and dense_2 layer.

Figure 8: Convolutional neural networks CNN-B with 9 layers

Table 3: Parameters of CNN-B with 9 layers

S. No. Layers Input image Filter No. of Activation Output Parameters
size size filter function
1 Input image 50 ∗ 50 ∗ 3 – – – – –
2 Convolution 50 ∗ 50 ∗ 3 5∗5 32 ReLU 46 ∗ 46 ∗ 32 2432
3 Maxpooling 46 ∗ 46 ∗ 32 3∗3 – – 15 ∗ 15 ∗ 32 0
4 Convolution 15 ∗ 15 ∗ 32 5∗5 32 ReLU 11 ∗ 11 ∗ 32 25632
5 Maxpooling 11 ∗ 11 ∗ 32 3∗3 – – 3∗3∗ 32 0
6 Dropout 3 ∗ 3 ∗ 32 0.25 – – 3∗3∗ 32 0
7 Flatten 3 ∗ 3 ∗ 32 – – – 288 0
8 Dense 288 64 – ReLU 64 18496
9 Dropout 64 0.5 – – 64 0
10 Dense 64 2 – Sigmoid 2 130
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3.5.3 Design of CNN-C Model

The block diagram representation of CNN-C model is shown in Fig. 9 in which a total 19
layers are used whose detailed description is given in Tab. 4. This table describes the size of filter,
number of filters, input image size, output image size and total number of parameters used at
each layer. CNN-C model consists of three convolution blocks and a fine tuned fully connected
layer. The size of the filter is also changed from 32 to 86 in this model.

Figure 9: Convolutional neural networks CNN-C with 19 layers

Table 4: Parameters of CNN-C with 19 layers

S. No. Name of Input image Filter No. of Activation Output with Parameter
layers size size filter function padding
1 Input image 50 ∗ 50 ∗ 3 – – – – –
2 Convolutional 50 ∗ 50 ∗ 3 3∗ 3 32 ReLU 50 ∗ 50 ∗ 32 896
3 Convolutional 50 ∗ 50 ∗ 32 3∗ 3 32 ReLU 50 ∗ 50 ∗ 32 9248
4 Maxpooling 50 ∗ 50 ∗ 32 2∗ 2 – – 25 ∗ 25 ∗ 32 0
5 Batch 25 ∗ 25 ∗ 32 – – – 25 ∗ 25 ∗ 32 128
normalization

(Continued)
1858 CMC, 2022, vol.71, no.1

Table 4: Continued
S. No. Name of Input image Filter No. of Activation Output with Parameter
layers size size filter function padding
6 Dropout 25 ∗ 25 ∗ 32 0.25 – – 25 ∗ 25 ∗ 32 0
7 Convolutional 25 ∗ 25 ∗ 32 3∗3 64 ReLU 25 ∗ 25 ∗ 64 18496
8 Convolutional 25 ∗ 25 ∗ 64 3∗3 64 ReLU 25 ∗ 25 ∗ 64 36928
9 Maxpooling 25 ∗ 25 ∗ 64 2∗2 – – 12 ∗ 12 ∗ 64 0
10 Batch 12 ∗ 12 ∗ 64 – – – 12 ∗ 12 ∗ 64 256
normalization
11 Dropout 12 ∗ 12 ∗ 64 0.25 – – 12 ∗ 12 ∗ 64 0
12 Convolutional 12 ∗ 12 ∗ 64 3∗3 86 ReLU 12 ∗ 12 ∗ 86 49622
13 Convolutional 12 ∗ 12 ∗ 86 3∗3 86 ReLU 12 ∗ 12 ∗ 86 66650
14 Maxpooling 12 ∗ 12 ∗ 86 2∗2 – – 6∗6∗ 86 0
15 Batch 6∗6∗ 86 – – – 6∗6∗ 86 344
normalization
16 Dropout 6 ∗ 6 ∗ 86 0.25 – – 6 ∗ 6 ∗ 86 0
17 Flatten 6 ∗ 6 ∗ 86 – – – 3096 0
18 Dense 3096 512 – ReLU 512 1585664
19 Dropout 512 0.25 – – 512 0
20 Dense 512 2 ReLU 2 1026

4 Results and Discussion

The various results obtained from the experiments are discussed in this section. Firstly, the dif-
ferent proposed CNN models are applied on the dataset, and the experiment results are obtained
and then machine learning techniques are applied on the dataset, and the experiment results are
obtained. Secondly, proposed CNN network results are compared with the best machine learning
classifier for computerized detection of diseased apple leaf images. Lastly, the CNN-algorithm is
compared with the previous literature.

4.1 Performance Analysis of Different CNN Models

Investigational results of the designed CNN networks i.e., CNN-A, CNN-B and CNN-C for
identification of diseases in apple leaves is shown in the following section. The performance of
these networks is examined in terms of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. The three different
models proposed convolution neural networks are trained with different numbers of images.
Every experiment is computed with the library of scikit learn. Following subsections shows the
parameter analysis of the three designed CNN’s model. These parameters are analyzed on four
different sets of images i.e., 50 K, 100 K, 150 K and 200 K. 16 epochs are used for training each
model with different parameters.

4.1.1 Results for CNN-A Model

Here the CNN-A model is trained on 4,353,346 parameters with 16 epochs. During simulation
time taken per epoch is at least 72 seconds for 50 K images whereas 362 seconds for 200 K images
with 16 epochs. The performance analysis is done with different sizes of dataset having 50 K,
100 K, 150 K and 200 K respectively shown in Tab. 5. From the table, it is analyzed that highest
accuracy and sensitivity of 87.2% and 87% respectively is obtained with 150 K training images
whereas the highest specificity is achieved of 91.4% with 200 K images.
CMC, 2022, vol.71, no.1 1859

Table 5: Parameters analysis of CNN-A with 16 epochs

No. of images
Metrics 50 K 100 K 150 K 200 K
Accuracy 0.851 0.856 0.872 0.867
Sensitivity 0.840 0.813 0.870 0.833
Specificity 0.857 0.868 0.874 0.914

4.1.2 Results for CNN-B Model

Here the CNN-B model is trained on 46,690 parameters with 16 epochs. During simulation
time taken per epoch is at least 72 seconds for 50 K images whereas 182 seconds for 200 K images
with 16 epochs. The performance analysis is done with different sizes of dataset having 50 K,
100 K, 150 K and 200 K respectively shown in Tab. 6. From the table, it is analyzed that highest
accuracy and specificity of 88.7% and 81.8% respectively is obtained with 200 K training images
whereas the highest sensitivity is achieved of 93.5% with 150 K images.

Table 6: Parameters analysis of CNN-B with 16 epochs

No. of images
Metrics 50 K 100 K 150 K 200 K
Accuracy 0.844 0.867 0.871 0.887
Sensitivity 0.889 0.911 0.935 0.926
Specificity 0.815 0.759 0.775 0.818

4.1.3 Results for CNN-C Model

Here the CNN-C model is trained on 1,769,258 parameters with 16 epochs. During simulation
time taken per epoch is at least 89 seconds for 50 K images whereas 442 seconds for 200 K images
with 16 epochs. The performance analysis is done with different sizes of dataset having 50 K,
100 K, 150 K and 200 K respectively is given in Tab. 7. From the table, it is analyzed that the
highest accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 99.2%, 99.7% and 97.8% respectively is obtained
with 200 K training images.

Table 7: Parameter analysis of CNN-C with 16 epoch

No. of images
Metrics 50 K 100 K 150 K 200 K
Accuracy 0.889 0.926 0.964 0.992
Sensitivity 0.889 0.911 0.986 0.997
Specificity 0.815 0.859 0.839 0.978

4.1.4 Comparative Analysis of Three Different CNN Models

Tab. 8 shows comparison of the performance parameter values and the architecture of pro-
posed CNN models CNN-A, CNN-B and CNN-C. The graphical representation is shown in
Fig. 10. Accuracy is obtained by division of the total correctness in predictions upon the total
given predictions. As given in table, the highest accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 99.2%,
1860 CMC, 2022, vol.71, no.1

99.7% and 97.8% is obtained with CNN-C model as compared to the CNN-B and CNN-A. It
is seen that deeper the convolutional neural networks architecture better are the results when
compared on the basis of layers.

Table 8: Comparison result of different CNN

CNN
Layers CNN-A CNN-B CNN-C
EPOCH 16 16 16
Convolution 2 2 6
Maxpooling 1 1 3
Dropout 2 2 4
Batch normalization – – 3
Flatten 1 1 1
Dense 2 2 2
Total layers 8 9 19
Accuracy 0.872 0.887 0.992
Sensitivity 0.87 0.926 0.997
Specificity 0.874 0.818 0.978

Comparison Result of Different CNN

Percentage Values

1.5

1
Accuracy
0.5
Sensitivity
0 Specificity
CNN-A CNN-B CNN-C
CNN Models

Figure 10: Comparison result of different CNN

4.1.5 Misclassification Result Analysis for the best CNN-C Model

The samples which are misclassified by best CNN model CNN-C is shown in Fig. 11. The
misclassification probably happens because of similarity in features images of the Marsonina and
Apple Scab.

Figure 11: (Continued)

CMC, 2022, vol.71, no.1 1861

Figure 11: Misclassification results obtained by CNN-C model

4.2 Performance Analysis with Machine Learning (ML) Algorithms

For the result analysis of machine learning algorithms, four different classifiers are imple-
mented on the same dataset. The classifiers considered are SVM, KNN, Logistic Regression and
Random Forest. A comparative analysis is done among machine learning and designed CNN
models. Finally, the best architecture model is achieved. Initially the different classifiers were
analyzed on 24000 training and 6000 testing images.

4.2.1 Results for KNN Classifier

The prepared dataset is analyzed with commonly used classifier KNN. For this, three values
of K i.e., 3, 5 and 7 have been taken and their performance has been analyzed in terms of
accuracy, classification error, sensitivity, specificity, false positive rate and precision. The result of
KNN classifiers with three values of K as 3, 5 and 7 are shown in Tab. 9. From the table it can
be analyzed that KNN performs better in terms of sensitivity of 81.7% with K value as 7. The
other parameters like accuracy, specificity and precision are almost the same for three values of
K. But their results are not satisfactory if compared with the proposed three CNN models.

Table 9: KNN parameter analysis with 6000 testing images

Parameters K =3 K = 5 K =7
Accuracy 0.778 0.78 0.792
Classification error 0.122 0.12 0.108
Sensitivity 0.758 0.782 0.817
Specificity 0.791 0.778 0.774
False positive rate 0.108 0.121 0.125
Precision 0.712 0.706 0.711

4.2.2 Results for SVM Classifier

The SVM classifier is analyzed with different kernels of SVM like Sigmoid, Linear and
RBF. These kernels are taken for analyzing the performance of a classifier in terms of accuracy,
classification error, sensitivity, specificity, false positive rate and precision as shown in Tab. 10.
1862 CMC, 2022, vol.71, no.1

Table 10: SVM parameter analysis with 6000 testing images

Parameters Sigmoid Linear RBF
Accuracy 0.820 0.801 0.713
Classification error 0.22 0.199 0.287
Sensitivity 0.854 0.725 0.641
Specificity 0.729 0.852 0.761
False positive rate 0.270 0.147 0.238
Precision 0.682 0.769 0.646

From the table it is seen that sensitivity of 85.4% is achieved using sigmoid kernel. Also, an
accuracy of 82% with sigmoid kernel, classification error of 19.9% with linear kernel and finally
precision of 76.9% with linear kernel is obtained. It can be analyzed that the sigmoid kernel
performs better in terms of accuracy and sensitivity but when compared to the proposed three
CNN models, their results are unsatisfactory.

4.2.3 Results for Random Forest Classifier

Random forest classifier is analyzed with different values of N-estimator i.e., 1000, 1500, 2000
as shown in Tab. 11. From the table it is seen that N-estimator (2000) shows the maximum sensi-
tivity of 80.4% and N-estimator (1500) shows maximum accuracy of 84.3%, whereas classification
error decreased to 15.7% with N-estimator (1000). It is also analyzed that precision is highest in
case of N-estimator (1500). Again, these results are not satisfactory if compared with the proposed
three CNN models.

Table 11: Random forest parameter analysis with 6000 testing images
Parameter N_estimator (1000) N_estimator (1500) N_estimator (2000)
Accuracy 0.827 0.843 0.839
Classification error 0.173 0.157 0.161
Sensitivity 0.772 0.802 0.804
Specificity 0.863 0.870 0.862
False positive rate 0.136 0.129 0.137
Precision 0.794 0.808 0.799

4.2.4 Results for Logistic Regression

The prepared dataset of 6000 testing images is analyzed with a logistic regression classifier
taking different parameters of logistic regression like binomial, multinomial and ordinal as shown
in Tab. 12. From the table it is seen that maximum sensitivity of 77% is obtained with multinomial
and ordinal kernels. Also accuracy of 82% and highest precision of 78% is achieved with ordinal.
This parameter also gives least classification error of 18% making it the best logistic regression
technique as compared with the other two logistic regression parameters but when compared to
the proposed three CNN models, their results are unsatisfactory.
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Table 12: Logistic regression performance metrics with 6000 testing images
Parameter Binomial Multinomial Ordinal
Accuracy 0.789 0.819 0.82
Classification error 0.211 0.181 0.18
Sensitivity 0.727 0.770 0.772
Specificity 0.834 0.852 0.852
False positive rate 0.167 0.147 0.147
Precision 0.755 0.78 0.780

4.2.5 Comparative Analysis Result of four ML Classifiers

A combined performance analysis of the classifier is given in Tab. 12, where parameters
have the maximum sensitivity for each classifier. Sensitivity and accuracy plays an important
role in disease detection of apple leaves. Sensitivity is the measure that tells what proportion
of images that actually had diseases, how sensitive the classifier is in classifying apple diseased
images. Wherein, the accuracy gives value of correctness in the estimation made by the designed
algorithm. The results from Tabs. 9 to 12 shows that sigmoid kernel is considered for SVM, N-
estimator (1000) for RF, ordinal for LR classifier and value of K i.e., 7 for KNN classifier given
the good result of accuracy and sensitivity. But, out of all the classifiers; the highest sensitivity of
85% is shown by the SVM classifier and accuracy of 83.9% is shown by RF classifier as shown
in Tab. 13.

Table 13: Performance metrics of different classifiers

Performance metrics SVM KNN LR RF
Accuracy 0.820 0.692 0.82 0.839
Classification error 0.22 0.108 0.18 0.161
Sensitivity 0.854 0.717 0.772 0.804
Specificity 0.729 0.674 0.852 0.862
False positive rate 0.270 0.125 0.147 0.137
Precision 0.682 0.611 0.780 0.799

4.3 Comparison of Best ML Classifier with Best Proposed CNN-C Model

Performance analysis is used to examine the efficiency of classification of the designed CNN-
A model which outperforms machine learning algorithms like SVM by applying the same dataset
to both the techniques. The analysis of both the techniques is done specifically on the basis of
accuracy and sensitivity, as these are the most important parameters for classification purposes.
Sensitivity shows the proportion of images that actually had diseases was also predicted of having
disease or one can say, how sensitive the classifier is in classifying diseased apple leaf images.
Wherein, the accuracy gives the accurate predictions made by the predictive model over the rest of
the predictions. The results of classification using machine and deep learning techniques is shown
in Tab. 14.
Here, the number of dataset taken is varied from 50 K to 200 K and it is seen that with
CNN-C model the accuracy of 99.2% is obtained when the number of images taken is 200 K.
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Overall, the deep learning technique gives better performance as compared to machine learning
techniques.

Table 14: Parameter analysis with varying number of images

Number of images SVM CNN-C
Accuracy Sensitivity Accuracy Sensitivity
50000 0.842 0.822 0.889 0.889
100000 0.851 0.766 0.926 0.911
150000 0.847 0.797 0.964 0.986
200000 0.839 0.790 0.992 0.997

4.4 Comparison of Best Proposed CNN-C Model with State of Art

When compared with accuracy, the designed 19 layer CNN-C outperforms previous state-
of-art. The proposed model has improved the accuracy when compared with other research as
a bigger dataset of diseased apple leaves is used and 99.2% of accuracy is being achieved. The
table clearly, shows that the proposed model gives the improved output results than the previous
work. The comparison of the proposed model accuracy with other research work is depicted in
the Tab. 15.

Table 15: Results of previous work using deep learning

Paper ID No. of images Classifiers Classification Accuracy
[7] 9164 CNN Apple Scab and Rust 88.9%
Black Rot
[8] 2462 DenseNet-121 Six different Apple 93.71%
Diseases
[9] 26377 CNN Alternaria Leaf Spot, 78.80%
Brown Spot and Rust
[10] – V3 Deep Benign and Malignant 97%
Architecture
[11] – CNN Marsonina Blotch 84.3%
[12] 2561 CNN Apple Scab and Apple 98.54%
Black Rot
[13] 404 LSA-Net Alternaria and Marsonina 89.4%
Blotch
[14] 2446 CNN Apple Scab and Frog Eye 99.01%
Spot
[15] 13689 CNN Brown Spot, Alternaria 97.62%
and Rust
Proposed 200000 CNN Marsonina Coronaria and 99.2%
algorithm Apple Scab

5 Conclusion
Apple is a highly essential product for India’s economy, and it has played a significant role
in our economy in the past. However, due to numerous diseases harming the crop, it is not
CMC, 2022, vol.71, no.1 1865

as abundant as it once was. The key goal of the research is to detect diseases like Marsonina
Coronaria and apple scab in apple leaves using automatic digital system. Firstly, three different
convolutional CNN networks are proposed for computerized detection of diseased apple leaf
images; secondly, machine learning techniques used for CAD systems, are applied on the dataset,
which can help detect the apple diseases. Lastly, the CNN model is compared with the already
existing machine learning techniques and also with the previous literature. The focus is on explor-
ing how the developed system performs when various performance parameters are implemented,
thus providing a better accuracy and sensitivity than the already existing techniques. The first stage
of the classification is done by convolution neural network in which CNN-C gives best result, and
then the classification is done by machine learning technique in which SVM classifier gives the
best result. Later various performance measures like accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, false positive
rate, classification error and precision are evaluated for machine learning. Out of the performance
measures, accuracy and sensitivity is chosen as the main parameter to judge the best classifier.
Accuracy of 99.2% and sensitivity 99.7% is obtained by taking 200000 histopathology images
using proposed CNN model C.
This work successfully exhibits better classification accuracy and sensitivity for the classi-
fication of apple leaf diseases images using 19 layer convolutional neural networks to classify
Marsonina Coronaria and Apple Scab diseases images of apple leaves. The usage of various
machine learning techniques and convolutional neural networks leads to better classification
accuracy. Apple diseases like alternaria, fire blight, cork spot, powdery mildew, black rot and
phytophthora rot may be considered for future disease detection. For real time solutions, there is
a need to develop mobile based applications which will guide the farmers to detect the disease
in apple leaves on their own. Further other plant diseases can also be taken for detection and
identification of diseases using CNN models and transfer learning models.

Funding Statement: This work was supported by Taif University Researchers Supporting Project
(TURSP) under number (TURSP-2020/73), Taif University, Taif, Saudi Arabia.

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to report regarding
the present study.

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