2021 International Conference on Computing, Communication, and Intelligent Systems (ICCCIS)
Comparison of Pre-Trained Models Using Transfer
Learning for Detecting Plant Disease
2021 International Conference on Computing, Communication, and Intelligent Systems (ICCCIS) | 978-1-7281-8529-3/20/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICCCIS51004.2021.9397098
Bincy Chellapandi M.Vijayalakshmi
Department of Information Technology Department of Information Technology
VESIT VESIT
Mumbai, India Mumbai, India
2018.bincy.chellapandi@ves.ac.in m.vijayalakshmi@ves.ac.in
Abstract—Artificial Intelligence has been proving a great
boon in almost all the sector of industries. In recent times the
demand for food has increased, whereas the supply still lacks. In
order to meet these increasing demands, prevention and early
detection of crop disease are some of the measures that must be
inculcated in farming to save the plants at an early stage and
thereby reducing the overall food loss. In this paper, we use a
deep learning-based model and transfer learning-based models
to classifying images of diseased plant leaves into 38 categories
of plant disease based on its defect on a Plant Village dataset.
Eight pre-trained models namely VGG16, VGG19, ResNet50,
InceptionV3, InceptionResnetV2, MobileNet, MobileNetV2,
DenseNet along with the one self-made model were used in our
study. We found that DenseNet achieves the best result on the
test data with an accuracy of 99%.
Keywords—Plant Disease, Deep Learning, Transfer Learning,
DenseNet, VGG16.
I. INTRODUCTION
One of the key industries which provide humans with
Food, Medicine, Raw Materials, and other necessities is
Agriculture. Being the backbone of our economy, it is the sole
provider of Jobs and opportunities to a major chunk of our
population.
Of the many challenges faced by farmers, Plant diseases
pose a major challenge to them. Identifying the disease before
it festers and spreads across the farm to other plants and curing
it is a herculean task by itself. On one hand, we have an ever-
rising need to feed the growing population, and on the other
hand, Agriculture as a career has been gradually decreasing
over time. Agriculture being attributed as a Blue-collar job has
worsened this divide even further. The Socio-Political climate
has made White-Collar jobs more attractive and Economical
to scores of people with better opportunities and higher pay
options leading to an ever-reducing strength of people
working the fields. This has led to developments in technology
in this sector to tackle this problem and one of the challenges
that we tackle in this paper is to identify the diseases in plants
at an earlier stage to provide a better cure for the plants thus
raising a better and healthy yield of crops
Checking each plant if it has any disease, and if it does,
then to identify which type of disease it has is a very lengthy
and time-consuming process. Moreover, a naked eye cannot
identify all the categories of diseases accurately. Hence,
Automating Plant Disease Identification using Artificial
Intelligence is being adopted by farmers at present times. An
automated system which can help farmers to identify plant
disease through computer vision would help farmers to save
ISBN: 978-1-7281-8529-3/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE 383
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Shalu Chopra
Department of Information Technology
VESIT
Mumbai, India
shaluchopra@ves.ac.in
disease through computer vision, would help farmers to save
time, plant, economy as well as all the efforts put by the
farmers will not go in vain. Hence, we have proposed a deep
learning model and various Transfer Learning models to
identify plant disease detection thereby automating the entire
system through Artificial Intelligence.
II. RELATED WORK
Various research works have been done in the image
classification and identification. Aakanksha Rastogi, Ritika
Arora and Shanu Sharma [1], used Maple and Hydrangea
leaves having two types of leave disease and pre-processed it,
then extracted its features to analyze its attributes. K-means
clustering along with ANN was used to segment the leaf into
3 parts namely, diseased part, leaf part, and the background
part following which the leaves were classified according to
its disease. S. Panigrahi, A. Nanda and T. Swarnkar [2], have
focused on the optimization of different parameters of a
convolutional neural network of deep learning for classifying
8000 labeled natural images of cat and dog. First, the
convolutional neural network is trained to learn features and
then an ANN binary classifier is used for classification.
Various level of optimization is used to improve the
performance level of the network and the best classification
accuracy of 88.31% is obtained by this method.
M. T. Islam, B. M. N. Karim Siddique, S. Rahman and T.
Jabid [3], used a convolutional neural network to classify food
images. Deep Learning is used to classify 16643 images of
food belonging to various food categories. An accuracy of
92.86% is obtained in the experiment. M. Shaha and M. Pawar
[4], did an image classification using transfer learning by fine-
tuning a pre-trained model named VGG19. The model’s
performance is compared with two pre-trained models called
VGG16 and AlexNet along with a hybrid Convolution Neural
Network (CNN) model with a support Vector Machine (SVM)
as a classifier on two different image datasets namely
CalTech256 and GHIM10K. The study concludes that
VGG19 performed better than the other three models.
H. T. H. Phan, A. Kumar, J. Kim and D. Feng [5], by using
a pre-trained CNN model that is by using transfer learning
classified HEp-2 cell image dataset. The model first extracts
the important features that best represent the images of the
dataset using feature selection, then those features are used to
classify the images into 6 different categories based on their
staining patterns. They conclude the study by proving that
their CNN algorithm performed the best than the other 4
algorithms made previously by other researchers.
 2021 International Conference on Computing, Communication, and Intelligent Systems (ICCCIS)
III. PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
A. System Proposed
Fig.1. Flowchart of the system proposed
The proposed system depicts the workflow as shown in Fig
1. The dataset is first obtained. After which the dataset is pre-
processed to eliminate unwanted details in the data. The
dataset is then split as 80% for training and 20% for
validating. It is then fed into downloaded pre-trained models,
where the models are fine-tuned and trained to extract the
features and validate for transfer learning. Whereas for deep
learning, the data is fed into a self-built CNN model for
training and testing. The models are then evaluated for their
performance.
B. Dataset
Dataset called the PlantVillage Dataset was obtained from
SP Mohanty's Git-Hub repository which contained 14 species
of plant belonging to 38 different classes with a total of
54,306 images of 256x256 pixels were used for training and
testing the model. Colored (RGB) images were used in this
study to train and classify the plant diseases.
C. Pre-processing of Dataset
Pre-processing of dataset plays a major role in training a
model as it helps in removing the noise or redundancy, faster
execution and thereby an increased accuracy. The images
were pre-processed using Data Augmentation. Techniques
like rotating, shearing, flipping, zooming, and filling were
applied to the data. Keras deep learning library in Python was
used for data augmentation.
D. Deep Learning
Deep learning is a part of Artificial Intelligence motivated
by the human brain, creating artificial neural networks
mimicking the human brain network, and thereby working
and learning on a large amount of data. We have used 12,000
images for our model which is randomly generated by the
ImageDataGenerator. The dataset is split into 80% of training
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set and 20% of testing set. We made a self-built Convolution
Neural Network with 3 convolutional layers using deep
learning for plant disease classification. We have also added
two max-pooling layers, with two dense layers of 128
neurons in the first layer and 38 neurons at the last. Two
dropouts of 25 percent and 50 percent were used in the
network to reduce over-fitting in between the layers. Relu
was used as an Activation function in between the layers and
in the last layer Softmax is used as the activation function for
the classification purpose. The loss function used is
categorical cross-entropy since it is a multiclass classification
problem. We trained the model for 30 epochs with a batch
size of 32.
E. Transfer Learning
Transfer learning is a machine learning strategy where a
model created for performing a particular function is used
again as the start line for another model on a subsequent task.
In Machine Learning, a model is built from scratch to solve a
particular problem, whereas in Transfer learning, a model that
has been already built by training on a huge amount of
miscellaneous dataset and has solved a particular problem,
can be used as a starting point in our model for solving our
customized problems as shown in Fig.2.
Fig.2. Transfer Learning
There are various Pre-trained Models built by organizations
for research purposes and are released under some
permissions. We have used eight pre-trained models namely:
InceptionV3, InceptionResnetV2, ResNet50, VGG16,
VGG19, MobileNet, MobileNetV2, and DenseNet for our
implementation.
We have fine-tuned these 8 pre-trained models on the last
layers of its network by our dataset of 9111 images only out
of 40,000 images. The 9111 images are then split into 80% of
the training dataset of 7017 images and 20% of a testing
dataset of 2094 images. These 9111 images out of 40,000
images are randomly generated using ImageDataGenerator.
We have also used the same data generators for generating our
training and testing image dataset. The ImageDataGenerator
does the pre-processing of images such as shearing, zooming,
flipping, brightness adjustment while generating the images.
The Pre-trained models are then imported as the base models,
trained on the ImageNet dataset. An EarlyStopping is used to
stop the training process when the validation accuracy stops
improving. To get a categorical output, Label encoding is
used. The base model is then conjoined by a
GlobalAveragePooling layer which is used for reducing the
data and for preparing the model for the final layer for
 2021 International Conference on Computing, Communication, and Intelligent Systems (ICCCIS)

classification. A BatchNormalization layer is then added for

the stability and quicker execution of the model thereby
reducing the training epochs. Then a dense layer with a weight
of 38(weight is assigned 38 because 38 are the different
categories of plant diseases which the model needs to
classify), with an activation function of softmax is used in the
final layer for withdrawing and classifying the output. Adam
optimizer with a learning rate of 0.0001 is used for updating
the weights. A categorical loss function is used to determine
how well our model is performing. In order to avoid
overfitting, a dropout of 1e-3 (where e is equal to 1 × 10−5)
is appended. The models have then trained again with a batch
size of 100 for 30 epochs on the training dataset and they are
tested on the testing dataset. Training accuracy, training loss,
validation loss, validation accuracy, Precision, Recall, F1-
Score is used for determining the performance of the models. Fig.5. Loss vs epochs

IV. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS

A. Convolution Neural Network in Deep Learning
After building and training the model for plant disease
detection using Convolution Neural Network, our self-built
model, gave an accuracy of 87%. We tested our model
bypassing a few images that were not included in the training
and testing dataset. The model performed better by predicting
almost all the images to their perfect category. One of such
testing on an image is shown in Fig 3. The image belonged to
the 'Apple_healthy' category and the model predicted it
correctly. The fluctuating drop and rise in loss function in Fig.
5 signify how the model slows down and speeds up in the
learning process respectively. The exponential growth
inaccuracy in Fig. 4 shows how well the model can classify
the diseases.
B. Pre-trained Models in Transfer Learning
After building and training the model using pre-trained
models using transfer learning, DenseNet achieves the best
result on test data followed by VGG16 as shown in Table I.
The training and validation accuracy of DenseNet and VGG16
model shown in Table II are the same, but the F1 score of
DenseNet is greater than VGG16 which is why DenseNet
achieves the best result, as greater the F1 score, the better the
model. From Fig 6 and 7, we can see that the DenseNet and
VGG16 each succeed a decent fit, as training and validation
loss decreases to some extent of stability with the lowest gap
between the two final loss values. Just like for CNN, for
transfer learning also few images not belonging to training and
testing dataset were used in predicting the type of plant disease
category they belong to and it was found that both pre-trained
models VGG16 and DenseNet predicted all of the images
correctly to their belonging category. One such example of
prediction is shown in Fig.8 where a sour cherry leaf image
having a powdery mildew, is classified correctly by both
VGG16 and DenseNet models.
I. TABLE I
COMPARISON OF PRE-TRAINED MODELS ON TEST DATA
Pre-trained Models Accuracy Precision Recall F1
Score

InceptionV3 0.97 0.96 0.94 0.95

Inception_Resnet_V2 0.98 0.97 0.96 0.97
Fig.3. Predicting the category of the plant disease using CNN. ResNet50 0.93 0.88 0.87 0.86
VGG16 0.99 0.95 0.95 0.95
VGG19 0.98 1.00 0.91 0.95
MobileNet 0.98 0.97 0.95 0.95
MobileNetV2 0.95 0.84 0.86 0.85
DenseNet 0.99 0.98 0.98 0.98

III. TABLE II
COMPARISON OF TRAINING AND VALIDATION ACCURACY
OF PRE-TRAINED MODELS ON TEST DATA
Pre-Trained Models Training Validation
Accuracy Accuracy
InceptionV3 1.0000 0.9756
InceptionResnetV2 1.0000 0.9733
Fig.4. Accuracy vs epochs
ResNet50 0.9840 0.9303
VGG16 1.0000 0.9895

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 2021 International Conference on Computing, Communication, and Intelligent Systems (ICCCIS)

VGG19 1.0000 0.9852

MobileNet 1.0000 0.9742
MobileNetV2 1.0000 0.9436
DenseNet 1.0000 0.9895

Fig.6. Accuracy vs epochs and Loss vs epochs of DenseNet Model

Fig.9. Classification Report of VGG16 Model

Fig.7. Accuracy vs epochs and Loss vs epochs of VGG16 Model

Fig.8. Predicting the category of plant disease using Transfer Learning.

Fig.10. Classification Report of DenseNet Model

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 2021 International Conference on Computing, Communication, and Intelligent Systems (ICCCIS)
Fig. 9 and 10 give the classification report of VGG16 and
DenseNet Model respectively. Referring to Fig 6, the first
column represents the 38 different types of Plant Disease
ranging from 0th to 37th. The second column Precision is the
quantitative relation of properly foretold positive
observations to the whole predicted positive observations.
E.g., for 0th plant disease type, the Precision is 1.00 which
signifies that of all plants that are labeled as type 0 diseased,
100% of them are type 0 diseased. The third column Recall
is that the magnitude relation of properly expected positive
observations to any or all observations within the actual class.
E.g., for the 0th plant disease type, the Recall is 0.95 which
signifies that of all the plants that truly type 0 diseased, 95%
of them are labeled by the model. The fourth column F1-score
is the weighted average of Precision and Recall. The fifth
column Support is the measure of how many times a particular
class occurs in a dataset. E.g., for the 0th plant disease type,
Support is 22 which signifies that 22 times the data belonging
to type 0 disease occur while training the model from a
dataset. From the classification report in Fig. 9 and 10, we can
see that DenseNet performs well than VGG16.
V. CONCLUSION
Artificial Intelligence has become a core unit of
development in all the primary and secondary sectors. Plant
Disease Detection researches and projects have been carried a
lot in recent times to help the farmers in agriculture. Machine
Learning, Deep Learning, Transfer Learning all being a part
of Artificial Intelligence are used in these studies and
researches. Using Deep Learning the accuracy doesn't go
more than 93% in Plant Disease Detection. The self-built
model using Convolution Neural Network in this study
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achieved an accuracy of 87%. Therefore we inculcated
Transfer Learning, using various pre-trained models along
with Deep Learning to achieve better results. We found that
DenseNet and VGG16 both proved to be the best models with
an accuracy of 99%. This paper gives a comparative study of
how accurate the pre-trained models can classify the images
with some fine-tuning which can be used for many image
classification applications like in the health sector for
identifying and classifying x-ray images, in reverse image
search engines, in biometrics and facial recognition, etc. This
study can further be studied by increasing the types of
diseases. It can also be inculcated in various user-friendly
applications for farmers to be put into actual use.
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