Detection of plant leaf Diseases Using Image
Processing Techniques
Abstract:
World advancements in technology has led to
application of different technological techniques
in many areas such farming to solve the then
manually solved problems, accurately and in the
fastest way possible. In the farming sector, a lot of
issues arise from diseases that attack crops and
data can be obtained either from the biological
features of the plants or through visuals that can
be captured by outstanding digital image tools.
Digital image processing carries numerous
benefits compared to use of biological means
since they are both time and resource costfull.
Additionally, through use of digital imaging
methods, a wide range of land covered by the
targeted crops can be sampled or inspected in a
short time. However, use of digital resquires
machines that can produce up to standard images
that can bring out quality visuals of the affected
parts of the plant.
In this work, we aimed at using digital image
processing methods to detect diseases in three
Ugandan crops, which are, Maize, Jirikiti and
Kamyu leaves.
Keywords: Digital Image, Crop disease, Image
processing
I. INTRODUCTION
Globally, digital image processing techniques
such as hyper-spectral imaging and photometric
among others have been used on a large scale to
solve issues related to plant diseases. In Uganda,
maize, Jirikiti and Kamyu crops are some of the
most cultivated crops for both food and herb
purposes. Farmers have a problem of
differentiating between infected and dried crop
leaves which brings in the need to use a bit more
advanced techniques such as image processing to
solve the problem. Image vision is one of the most
commonly used techniques. An effective image
analysis process goes through three very
significant steps which help to identify various
plant diseases with a high degree of accuracy.
1. Use of special filters to shape the attributes
of the image characterized at certain
points.
2. Initiation of image coordinates incase of
further diagnosis.
3. Finally, the feature points identification.
In curing out the above three steps, the size of the
plant, degree of the disease development and site
or location of the plant disease can be determined.
LITERATURE REVIEW:
In recent years, a lot of heuristics have been
developed to tackle the issue of disease in plants
using digital image processing. Banupriya et al. In
their paper called Plant disease detection using
image vision and machine Learning[1], they used
K-means clustering and a convoluted neural
network to accurately predict the presence of the
disease. The paper also dug deeper into the
bindings segmentation and retrieval of the disease.
In 2020 V Suresh et al.[2], used image processing
and other methods to build a website that can
connect the infected crop to the pesticide to be
used for cure and track the usage. In 2015, Sachin
D. Khirade and A.B Patil[3], discussed various
methods of disease detection in plants using plant
leaves. They further discussed some segmentation
and feature extraction algorithms for the same
purpose.
In 2022 Nabobi Hasan et al.[4], made a
comprehensive review on leaf plant disease
detection in which they summarized the
limitations of image processing in disease
detection in plant leaves. In May of 2020,
Shubham Malvankara[6] did an intensive survey
about disease detection in plants by looking at
surveys, machine learning techniques and
usefulness of various methods in the same feild.
Pranesh Shridhar kulkami et al.[7], in 2021
proposed a smart crop disease detection by use of
computer vision and their system had the ability
to detect 20 diseases of 5 common plants with
95% accuracy. Similarly, our goal in this work is
to identify the disease patterns on the leaves of the
three aforementioned plant leaves.

3.0 MATERIAL AND METHODOLOGY

To use computerized methods to identify the
infections in leaves, we went through a few steps
which are image acquisition, background removal
and finally texture and color extraction as shown
in the flowchart.

Figure 1, image infected leaf image identification

flow chart
As the flow chart suggests, first, the images to be
tested are collected using good quality cameras,
then, the background of the image is removed to
bring more focus to the images itself and avoid
further noise.
From that step, visual signs of every leaf had to be
spotted as seen in the figure 2(a),(b) and (c)
below of Kamyu, Jirikiti and Maize respectively
 contours after separation of the points in that
given range. We then pass Gaussian filters of low
and high frequency to get smoothed images that
reflect the unique features of the disease.
We used a python library called openCV to filter
out the infected parts of the leaves as shown in
Figure 3(a),(b) and (c) below.

Figure 2(a)

figure 3(a)

Figure 2(b)

figure 3(b)

Figure 2(c)
First, the color spectrum range is synchronized to
determine the range in which every crop image
will be highlighted and the RGB images are set to
(Heu saturation Lightness)HSL or (Heu saturation
Value) HSV to improve the spectrum. For
example if the low color is 437617, the color high
can be 17,576,390 in HSL format. The Kenny figure 3(c)
border spotter is applied in creation of specific
From the photos shown above, the leaf zones that
are infected can be patterned out after the Gausian
filtering process. These spots standout in almost
the same apogees.
4. CONCLUSION
The use of technology in solving
agricultural problems such as early
spotting of infected crops or fruit has been
rampant more so in the 20th century where
advancement of machine learning grows at
a rocket speed. In this study we used
image processing techniques to recognise
infected crops of Ugandan maize, Jirikiti
and Kamyu crop leaves to spot the
infected patterns by passing them through
the gaussian low and high filter. In
addition, use of color spectrum detectors
and special point detectors helped to
increase the identification accuracy.
Of the wto detectors employed in the
process, Surf detectors had a faster action
with low point study while SIFT was a bit
more accurate in determining the special
infected points of the image.
Control and Automation, ICCUBEA 2015. 768-771.
10.1109/ICCUBEA.2015.153.
[4] Hasan, Nabobi & Mustavi, Mufrad & Jubaer, Abu &
Shahriar, Md & Ahmed, Tanvir. (2022). Plant Leaf Disease
Detection Using Image Processing: A Comprehensive
Review. Malaysian Journal of Science and Advanced
Technology. 174-182. 10.56532/mjsat.v2i4.80.
[5] Malvankar, Shubham. (2020). Plant Disease Detection
using Image Processing. International Journal for Research
in Applied Science and Engineering Technology. 8. 2685-
2690. 10.22214/ijraset.2020.5450.
[6] Naik, Akruti & Thaker, Hetal & Vyas, Dhaval. (2021).
A survey on various image processing techniques and
machine learning models to detect, quantify and classify
foliar plant disease. Proceedings of the Indian National
Science Academy. 87. 10.1007/s43538-021-00027-4.
[7] Kulkarni, Pranesh & Karwande, Atharva & Kolhe,
Tejas & Kamble, Soham & Joshi, Akshay & Wyawahare,
Medha. (2021). Plant Disease Detection Using Image
Processing and Machine Learning.

REFERENCES
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V,Varsha,. (2022). PLANT DISEASE DETECTION
USING IMAGE PROCESSING AND MACHINE
LEARNING ALGORITHM. 10.37896/jxu14.7/012.

[2] Suresh, V & Krishnan, Mohana & Hemavarthini, M &

Jayanthan, D. (2020). Plant Disease Detection using Image
Processing. International Journal of Engineering Research
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[3] Khirade, Sachin & Patil, A.B.. (2015). Plant Disease

Detection Using Image Processing. Proceedings - 1st
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