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Diseases of tomato leaves can seriously damage crop yield and financial rewards. The timely and accurate detection of tomato diseases is a major challenge in agriculture. Hence, the early and accurate diagnosis of tomato diseases is crucial. The emergence of deep learning has dramatically helped in plant disease detection. However, the accuracy of deep learning models largely depends on the quantity and quality of training data. To solve the inter-class imbalance problem and improve the generalization ability of the classification model, this paper proposes a cycle-consistent generative-adversarial-network-based Transformer model to generate diseased tomato leaf images for data augmentation. In addition, this paper uses a Transformer model and densely connected CNN architecture to extract multilevel local features. The Transformer module is utilized to capture global dependencies and contextual information accurately to expand the sensory field of the model. Experiments show that the proposed model achieved 99.45% accuracy on the PlantVillage dataset. The 2018 Artificial Intelligence Challenger dataset and the private dataset attained accuracies of 98.30% and 95.4%, and the proposed classification model achieved a higher accuracy and smaller model size compared to previous deep learning models. The classification model is generalizable and robust and can provide a stable theoretical framework for crop disease prevention and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the global population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, the agricultural sector faces the challenge of achieving an increase of 60% in food production without using much more land. This paper explores the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to bridge this "land gap" and mitigate the environmental implications of agricultural land use. Typically, the problem with using AI in such agricultural sectors is the need for more specific infrastructure to enable developers to design AI and ML engineers to deploy these AIs. It is, therefore, essential to develop dedicated infrastructures to apply AI models that optimize resource extraction in the agricultural sector. This article presents an infrastructure for the execution and development of AI-based models using open-source technology, and this infrastructure has been optimized and tuned for agricultural environments. By embracing the MLOps culture, the automation of AI model development processes is promoted, ensuring efficient workflows, fostering collaboration among multidisciplinary teams, and promoting the rapid deployment of AI-driven solutions adaptable to changing field conditions. The proposed architecture integrates state-of-the-art tools to cover the entire AI model lifecycle, enabling efficient workflows for data scientists and ML engineers. Considering the nature of the agricultural field, it also supports diverse IoT protocols, ensuring communication between sensors and AI models and running multiple AI models simultaneously, optimizing hardware resource utilization. Surveys specifically designed and conducted for this paper with professionals related to AI show promising results. These findings demonstrate that the proposed architecture helps close the gap between data scientists and ML engineers, easing the collaboration between them and simplifying their work through the whole AI model lifecycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural development is one of the most essential needs worldwide. In Norway, the primary foundation of grain production is based on geological and biological features. Existing research is limited to regional-scale yield predictions using artificial intelligence (AI) models, which provide a holistic overview of crop growth. In this paper, the authors propose detecting several field-scale crop types and use this analysis to predict yield production early in the growing season. In this study, the authors utilise a multi-temporal satellite image, meteorological, geographical, and grain production data corpus. The authors extract relevant vegetation indices from satellite images. Furthermore, the authors use field-area-specific features to build a field-based crop type classification model. The proposed model, consisting of a time-distributed network and a gated recurrent unit, can efficiently classify crop types with an accuracy of 70%. In addition, the authors justified that the attention-based multiple-instance learning models could learn semi-labelled agricultural data, and thus, allow realistic early in-season predictions for farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanotechnology, nanosensors in particular, has increasingly drawn researchers' attention in recent years since it has been shown to be a powerful tool for several fields like mining, robotics, medicine and agriculture amongst others. Challenges ahead, such as food availability, climate change and sustainability, have promoted such attention and pushed forward the use of nanosensors in agroindustry and environmental applications. However, issues with noise and confounding signals make the use of these tools a non-trivial technical challenge. Great advances in artificial intelligence, and more particularly machine learning, have provided new tools that have allowed researchers to improve the quality and functionality of nanosensor systems. This short review presents the latest work in the analysis of data from nanosensors using machine learning for agroenvironmental applications. It consists of an introduction to the topics of nanosensors and machine learning and the application of machine learning to the field of nanosensors. The rest of the paper consists of examples of the application of machine learning techniques to the utilisation of electrochemical, luminescent, SERS and colourimetric nanosensor classes. The final section consists of a short discussion and conclusion concerning the relevance of the material discussed in the review to the future of the agroenvironmental sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work was aimed at developing a prototype system based on multispectral digital photogrammetry to support tests required by international regulations for new Plant Protection Products (PPPs). In particular, the goal was to provide a system addressing the challenges of a new PPP evaluation with a higher degree of objectivity with respect to the current one, which relies on expert evaluations. The system uses Digital Photogrammetry, which is applied to multispectral acquisitions and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The goal of this paper is also to simplify the present screening process, moving it towards more objective and quantitative scores about phytotoxicity. The implementation of an opportunely trained AI model for phytotoxicity prediction aims to convert ordinary human visual observations, which are presently provided with a discrete scale (forbidding a variance analysis), into a continuous variable. The technical design addresses the need for a reduced dataset for training the AI model and relating discrete observations, as usually performed, to some proxy variables derived from the photogrammetric multispectral 3D model. To achieve this task, an appropriate photogrammetric multispectral system was designed. The system operates in multi-nadiral-view mode over a bench within a greenhouse exploiting an active system for lighting providing uniform and diffuse illumination. The whole system is intended to reduce the environmental variability of acquisitions tending to a standard situation. The methodology combines advanced image processing, image radiometric calibration, and machine learning techniques to predict the General Phytotoxicity percentage index (PHYGEN), a crucial measure of phytotoxicity. Results show that the system can generate reliable estimates of PHYGEN, compliant with existing accuracy standards (even from previous PPPs symptom severity models), using limited training datasets. The proposed solution addressing this challenge is the adoption of the Logistic Function with LASSO model regularization that has been shown to overcome the limitations of a small sample size (typical of new PPP trials). Additionally, it provides the estimate of a numerical continuous index (a percentage), which makes it possible to tackle the objectivity problem related to human visual evaluation that is presently based on an ordinal discrete scale. In our opinion, the proposed prototype system could have significant potential in improving the screening process for new PPPs. In fact, it works specifically for new PPPs screening and, despite this, it has an accuracy consistent with the one ordinarily accepted for human visual approaches. Additionally, it provides a higher degree of objectivity and repeatability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a method for recognizing the origin of Saposhnikovia divaricata using the IResNet model to achieve computer vision-based classification. Firstly, we created a small sample dataset and applied data augmentation techniques to enhance its diversity. After that, we introduced the hierarchical residual connection block in the early stage of the original model to expand the perceptual field of the neural network and enhance the extraction of scale features. Meanwhile, a depth-separable convolution operation was adopted in the later stage of the model to replace the conventional convolution operation and further reduce the time cost of the model. The experimental results demonstrate that the improved network model achieved a 5.03% improvement in accuracy compared to the original model while also significantly reducing the number of parameters required for the model. In our experiments, we compared the accuracy of the proposed model with several classical convolutional neural network models, including ResNet50, Resnest50, Res2net50, RepVggNet_B0, and ConvNext_T. The results showed that our proposed model achieved an accuracy of 93.72%, which outperformed ResNet50 (86.68%), Resnest50 (89.38%), Res2net50 (91.83%), RepVggNet_B0 (88.68%), and ConvNext_T (92.18%). Furthermore, our proposed model achieved the highest accuracy among the compared models, with a transmission frame rate of 158.9 fps and an inference time of only 6.29 ms. The research methodology employed in this study has demonstrated the ability to reduce potential errors caused by manual observation, effectively improving the recognition ability of Saposhnikovia divaricata based on existing data. Furthermore, the findings of this study provide valuable reference and support for future efforts to develop lightweight models in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the rapid development of information and communication technology, and the huge amounts of data that have undergone explosive growth, artificial intelligence and machine learning have been used for predictive analysis in many fields. However, the prediction accuracy of these machine learning recognition models depends on the quality of the features selected for training. It is therefore very important to analyse characteristics that are meaningful and in line with the target variables as the training conditions for machine learning recognition models. In this paper, we analyse the correlation between features and target variables using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, and integrate transfer learning technology for sequential feature extraction to enhance the prediction accuracy of a machine learning recognition model for the prediction of multiple crop pests and diseases as the performance verification target of the proposed method. The performance of our machine learning recognition model is compared with schemes in related work, and our approach is shown to increase the prediction accuracy by between 3% and 15%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainable use of water resources is of utmost importance given climatological changes and water scarcity, alongside the many socioeconomic factors that rely on clean water availability, such as food security. In this context, developing tools to minimize water waste in irrigation is paramount for sustainable food production. The evapotranspiration estimate is a tool to evaluate the water volume required to achieve optimal crop yield with the least amount of water waste. The Penman-Monteith equation is the gold standard for this task, despite it becoming inapplicable if any of its required climatological variables are missing. In this paper, we present a stochastic Bayesian framework to model the non-linear and non-stationary time series for the evapotranspiration estimate via Bayesian regression. We also leverage Bayesian networks and Bayesian inference to provide estimates for missing climatological data. Our obtained Bayesian regression equation achieves 0.087 mm · day − 1 for the RMSE metric, compared to the expected time series, with wind speed and net incident solar radiation as the main components. Lastly, we show that the evapotranspiration time series, with missing climatological data inferred by the Bayesian network, achieves an RMSE metric ranging from 0.074 to 0.286 mm · day − 1 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lentinula edodes logs are susceptible to sundry bacteria contamination during the culture process, and the manual identification of contaminated logs is difficult, untimely, and inaccurate. Aiming to solve this problem, this paper proposes a method for the identification of contaminated Lentinula edodes logs based on the deep learning model Ghost–YOLOv4. Firstly, a data set of Lentinula edodes log sundry bacteria contamination was constructed. Secondly, in view of the problems that the YOLOv4 network parameters are too large and that the detection speeds of Lentinula edodes log videos are slow, the backbone feature extraction network was replaced with a lightweight network, GhostNet, and the YOLOv4 enhancement feature extraction network PANet and the Yolo Head modules were completed. The modification of the network reduced the number of parameters of the network and improved the detection speed of the network. Finally, the feature extraction network introduced the migration learning pre-training model, which reduced the computational pressure and overfitting problems of the model and further improved the performance of the Ghost–YOLOv4 network. Not only did the constructed Ghost–YOLOv4 ensure the accuracy of the identification and detection of Lentinula edodes log sundry bacteria contamination, but it also had better results in detection speed and real-time performance, and it provides an effective solution for the lightweight deployment of a target detection model on embedded equipment in culture sheds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential benefits of applying information and communication technology (ICT) in precision agriculture to enhance sustainable agricultural growth were discussed in this review article. The current technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as their applications, must be integrated into the agricultural sector to ensure long-term agricultural productivity. These technologies have the potential to improve global food security by reducing crop output gaps, decreasing food waste, and minimizing resource use inefficiencies. The importance of collecting and analyzing big data from multiple sources, particularly in situ and on-the-go sensors, is also highlighted as an important component of achieving predictive decision making capabilities in precision agriculture and forecasting yields using advanced yield prediction models developed through machine learning. Finally, we cover the replacement of wired-based, complicated systems in infield monitoring with wireless sensor networks (WSN), particularly in the agricultural sector, and emphasize the necessity of knowing the radio frequency (RF) contributing aspects that influence signal intensity, interference, system model, bandwidth, and transmission range when creating a successful Agricultural Internet of Thing Ag-IoT system. The relevance of communication protocols and interfaces for presenting agricultural data acquired from sensors in various formats is also emphasized in the paper, as is the function of 4G, 3G, and 5G technologies in IoT-based smart farming. Overall, these research sheds light on the significance of wireless sensor networks and big data in the future of precision crop production [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global drylands, covering about 41% of Earth's surface and inhabited by 38% of the world's population, are facing the stark challenges of water scarcity, low water productivity, and food insecurity. This paper highlights the major constraints to agricultural productivity, traditional irrigation scheduling methods, and associated challenges, efforts, and progress to enhance water use efficiency (WUE), conserve water, and guarantee food security by overviewing different smart irrigation approaches. Widely used traditional irrigation scheduling methods (based on weather, plant, and soil moisture conditions) usually lack important information needed for precise irrigation, which leads to over- or under-irrigation of fields. On the other hand, by using several factors, including soil and climate variation, soil properties, plant responses to water deficits, and changes in weather factors, smart irrigation can drive better irrigation decisions that can help save water and increase yields. Various smart irrigation approaches, such as artificial intelligence and deep learning (artificial neural network, fuzzy logic, expert system, hybrid intelligent system, and deep learning), model predictive irrigation systems, variable rate irrigation (VRI) technology, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could ensure high water use efficiency in water-scarce regions. These smart irrigation technologies can improve water management and accelerate the progress in achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), where no one gets left behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The direct effect of global warming on viticulture is already apparent, with unexpected pests and diseases as one of the most concerning consequences. Deploying sticky traps on grape plantations to attract key insects has been the backbone of conventional pest management programs. However, they are time-consuming processes for winegrowers, conducted through visual inspection via the manual identification and counting of key insects. Additionally, winegrowers usually lack taxonomy expertise for accurate species identification. This paper explores the usage of deep learning on the edge to identify and quantify pest counts automatically. Different mobile devices were used to acquire a dataset of yellow sticky and delta traps, consisting of 168 images with 8966 key insects manually annotated by experienced taxonomy specialists. Five different deep learning models suitable to run locally on mobile devices were selected, trained, and benchmarked to detect five different insect species. Model-centric, data-centric, and deployment-centric strategies were explored to improve and fine-tune the considered models, where they were tested on low-end and high-end mobile devices. The SSD ResNet50 model proved to be the most suitable architecture for deployment on edge devices, with accuracies per class ranging from 82% to 99%, the F1 score ranging from 58% to 84%, and inference speeds per trap image of 19.4 s and 62.7 s for high-end and low-end smartphones, respectively. These results demonstrate the potential of the approach proposed to be integrated into a mobile-based solution for vineyard pest monitoring by providing automated detection and the counting of key vector insects to winegrowers and taxonomy specialists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting crop yields is one of the most challenging tasks in agriculture. It plays an essential role in decision making at global, regional, and field levels. Soil, meteorological, environmental, and crop parameters are used to predict crop yield. A wide variety of decision support models are used to extract significant crop features for prediction. In precision agriculture, monitoring (sensing technologies), management information systems, variable rate technologies, and responses to inter- and intravariability in cropping systems are all important. The benefits of precision agriculture involve increasing crop yield and crop quality, while reducing the environmental impact. Simulations of crop yield help to understand the cumulative effects of water and nutrient deficiencies, pests, diseases, and other field conditions during the growing season. Farm and in situ observations (Internet of Things databases from sensors) together with existing databases provide the opportunity to both predict yields using "simpler" statistical methods or decision support systems that are already used as an extension, and also enable the potential use of artificial intelligence. In contrast, big data databases created using precision management tools and data collection capabilities are able to handle many parameters indefinitely in time and space, i.e., they can be used for the analysis of meteorology, technology, and soils, including characterizing different plant species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the global population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, the agricultural sector faces the challenge of achieving an increase of 60% in food production without using much more land. This paper explores the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to bridge this “land gap” and mitigate the environmental implications of agricultural land use. Typically, the problem with using AI in such agricultural sectors is the need for more specific infrastructure to enable developers to design AI and ML engineers to deploy these AIs. It is, therefore, essential to develop dedicated infrastructures to apply AI models that optimize resource extraction in the agricultural sector. This article presents an infrastructure for the execution and development of AI-based models using open-source technology, and this infrastructure has been optimized and tuned for agricultural environments. By embracing the MLOps culture, the automation of AI model development processes is promoted, ensuring efficient workflows, fostering collaboration among multidisciplinary teams, and promoting the rapid deployment of AI-driven solutions adaptable to changing field conditions. The proposed architecture integrates state-of-the-art tools to cover the entire AI model lifecycle, enabling efficient workflows for data scientists and ML engineers. Considering the nature of the agricultural field, it also supports diverse IoT protocols, ensuring communication between sensors and AI models and running multiple AI models simultaneously, optimizing hardware resource utilization. Surveys specifically designed and conducted for this paper with professionals related to AI show promising results. These findings demonstrate that the proposed architecture helps close the gap between data scientists and ML engineers, easing the collaboration between them and simplifying their work through the whole AI model lifecycle.

Featured Application: This paper conducts a literature review on information and communication solutions supporting data lifecycle in precision agriculture. The role of agriculture in environmental degradation and climate change has been at the center of a long-lasting and controversial debate. This situation combined with the expected growth in crop demand and the increasing prices of fertilizers and pesticides has made the need for a more resource-efficient and environmentally sustainable agriculture more evident than ever. Precision agriculture (PA), as a relatively new farming management concept, aims to improve crop performance as well as to reduce the environmental footprint by utilizing information about the temporal and the spatial variability of crops. Information and communication technology (ICT) systems have influenced and shaped every part of modern life, and PA is no exception. The current paper conducts a literature review of prominent ICT solutions, focusing on their role in supporting different phases of the lifecycle of PA-related data. In addition to this, a data lifecycle model was developed as part of a novel categorization approach for the analyzed solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lettuce is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable, but sometimes for its stem and seeds, and its growth status and quality are evaluated based on its morphological phenotypic traits. However, traditional measurement methods are often labor-intensive and time-consuming due to manual measurements and may result in less accuracy. In this study, we proposed a new method utilizing RGB images and Mask R-Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for estimating lettuce critical phenotypic traits. Leveraging publicly available datasets, we employed an improved Mask R-CNN model to perform a phenotypic analysis of lettuce images. This allowed us to estimate five phenotypic traits simultaneously, which include fresh weight, dry weight, plant height, canopy diameter, and leaf area. The enhanced Mask R-CNN model involved two key aspects: (1) replacing the backbone network from ResNet to RepVGG to enhance computational efficiency and performance; (2) adding phenotypic branches and constructing a multi-task regression model to achieve end-to-end estimation of lettuce phenotypic traits. Experimental results demonstrated that the present method achieved high accuracy and stable results in lettuce image segmentation, detection, and phenotypic estimation tasks, with APs for detection and segmentation being 0.8684 and 0.8803, respectively. Additionally, the R2 values for the five phenotypic traits are 0.96, 0.9596, 0.9329, 0.9136, and 0.9592, with corresponding mean absolute percentage errors (MAPEs) of 0.1072, 0.1522, 0.0757, 0.0548, and 0.0899, respectively. This study presents a novel technical advancement based on digital knowledge for phenotypic analysis and evaluation of lettuce quality, which could lay the foundation for artificial intelligence expiation in fresh vegetable production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is an area that currently benefits from the use of new technologies and techniques, such as artificial intelligence, to improve production in crop fields. Zacatecas is one of the states producing the most onions in the northeast region of Mexico. Identifying and determining vegetation, soil, and humidity zones could help solve problems such as irrigation demands or excesses, identify spaces with different levels of soil homogeneity, and estimate the yield or health of the crop. This study examines the application of artificial intelligence through the use of deep learning, specifically convolutional neural networks, to identify the patterns that can be found in a crop field, in this case, vegetation, soil, and humidity zones. To extract the mentioned patterns, the K-nearest neighbor algorithm was used to pre-process images taken using unmanned aerial vehicles and form a dataset composed of 3672 images of vegetation, soil, and humidity (1224 for each class). A total of six convolutional neural network models were used to identify and classify the patterns, namely Alexnet, DenseNet, VGG16, SqueezeNet, MobileNetV2, and Res-Net18. Each model was evaluated with the following validation metrics: accuracy, F1-score, precision, and recall. The results showed a variation in performance between 90% and almost 100%. Alexnet obtained the highest metrics with an accuracy of 99.92%, while MobileNetV2 had the lowest accuracy of 90.85%. Other models, such as DenseNet, VGG16, SqueezeNet, and ResNet18, showed an accuracy of between 92.02% and 98.78%. Furthermore, our study highlights the importance of adopting artificial intelligence in agriculture, particularly in the management of onion fields in Zacatecas, Mexico. The findings can help farmers and agronomists make more informed and efficient decisions, which can lead to greater production and sustainability in local agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine learning is a widespread technology that plays a crucial role in digitalisation and aims to explore rules and patterns in large datasets to autonomously solve non-linear problems, taking advantage of multiple source data. Due to its versatility, machine learning can be applied to agriculture. Better crop management, plant health assessment, and early disease detection are some of the main challenges facing the agricultural sector. Plant phenotyping can play a key role in addressing these challenges, especially when combined with machine learning techniques. Therefore, this study reviews available scientific literature on the applications of machine learning algorithms in plant phenotyping with a specific focus on sunflowers. The most common algorithms in the agricultural field are described to emphasise possible uses. Subsequently, the overview highlights machine learning application on phenotyping in three primaries areas: crop management (i.e., yield prediction, biomass estimation, and growth stage monitoring), plant health (i.e., nutritional status and water stress), and disease detection. Finally, we focus on the adoption of machine learning techniques in sunflower phenotyping. The role of machine learning in plant phenotyping has been thoroughly investigated. Artificial neural networks and stacked models seems to be the best way to analyse data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional approach of prescribing phosphate fertilizer solely based on soil test P (STP) has faced criticism from scientists and agriculturists pushing farmers to seek phosphate fertilization models that incorporate additional factors. By embracing integrated approaches, farmers can receive more precise recommendations that align with their specific conditions and fertilization techniques. This study aimed to utilize artificial intelligence prediction to replicate soybean response curves to fertilizer by integrating edaphic and climatic factors. Literature data on soybean response to P fertilization were collected, and the Random Forest (RF) algorithm was applied to predict response curves. The predictions utilized seven predictors: P dose, STP, soil pH, texture, % OM, precipitation, and P application methods. These predictions were compared to the traditional STP-based approach. The STP-based P prescription models exhibited extremely low robustness values (R2) of 1.53% and 0.88% for the PBray-1 and POlsen diagnostic systems, respectively. In contrast, implementing the RF algorithm allowed for more accurate prediction of yield gains at various P doses, achieving robustness values of 87.4% for the training set and 60.9% for the testing set. The prediction errors remained below 10% throughout the analysis. Implementing artificial intelligence modeling enabled the study to achieve precise predictions of the optimal P dose and customized fertilization recommendations tailored to farmers' specific soil conditions, climate, and individual fertilization practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From connected sensors in soils, on animals or crops, and on drones, to various software and services that are available, "smart" technologies are changing the way farming is carried out. These technologies allow producers to look beyond what the eye can see by collecting non-traditional data and then using analytics tools to improve both food sustainability and profitability. "Smart Agriculture/farming" (SA) or "Digital Agriculture" (DA), often used interchangeably, refer to precision agriculture that is thus connected in a network of sensing and acting. It is a concept that employs modern information technologies, precision climate information, and crop/livestock developmental information to connect production variables to increase the quantity and quality of agricultural and food products. This is achieved by measuring and analyzing variables accurately, feeding the information into the cloud from edge devices, extracting trends from the various data, and subsequently providing information back to the producer in a timely manner. Smart agriculture covers many disciplines, including biology, mechanical engineering, automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and information technology-digital platforms. Minimum standards have been proposed for stakeholders with the aim to move toward this highly anticipated and ever-changing revolution. These foundational standards encompass the following general categories, including precise articulation of objectives, and baseline standards for the Internet of Things (IoT), including network infrastructure (e.g., stable 4G or 5G networks or a wireless local area network (WLAN) are available to end users). To sum up, SA aims to improve production efficiency, enhance the quality and quantity of agricultural products, reduce costs, and improve the environmental footprint of the industry. SA's ecosystem should be industry self-governed and collaboratively financed. SA stakeholders and end-users' facilities should meet standard equipment requirements, such as sensor accuracy, end data collectors, relevant industry compliant software, and trusted data analytics. The SA user is willing to be part of the SA ecosystem. This short perspective aims to summarize digital/smart agriculture concept in plain language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Difficulties are faced when formulating hydrological processes, including that of evapotranspiration (ET). Conventional empirical methods for formulating these possess some shortcomings. The artificial intelligence approach emerges as the best possible solution to map the relationships between climatic parameters and ET, even with limited knowledge of the interactions between variables. This review presents the state-of-the-art application of artificial intelligence models in ET estimation, along with different types and sources of data. This paper discovers the most significant climatic parameters for different climate patterns. The characteristics of the basic artificial intelligence models are also explored in this review. To overcome the pitfalls of the individual models, hybrid models which use techniques such as data fusion and ensemble modeling, data decomposition as well as remote sensing-based hybridization, are introduced. In particular, the principles and applications of the hybridization techniques, as well as their combinations with basic models, are explained. The review covers most of the related and excellent papers published from 2011 to 2019 to keep its relevancy in terms of time frame and field of study. Guidelines for the future prospects of ET estimation in research are advocated. It is anticipated that such work could contribute to the development of agriculture-based economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Progress in agricultural productivity and sustainability hinges on strategic investments in technological research. Evolving technologies such as the Internet of Things, sensors, robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data, and Cloud Computing are propelling the agricultural sector towards the transformative Agriculture 4.0 paradigm. The present systematic literature review employs the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology to explore the usage of Machine Learning in agriculture. The study investigates the foremost applications of Machine Learning, including crop, water, soil, and animal management, revealing its important role in revolutionising traditional agricultural practices. Furthermore, it assesses the substantial impacts and outcomes of Machine Learning adoption and highlights some challenges associated with its integration in agricultural systems. This review not only provides valuable insights into the current landscape of Machine Learning applications in agriculture, but it also outlines promising directions for future research and innovation in this rapidly evolving field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of smart agriculture holds great significance in ensuring the supply and cyber security of agricultural production. With the advancement of intelligent technologies, unmanned robots collaborating with the Internet of Things (IoT) play increasingly crucial roles in the realm of smart agriculture; they have become effective means to ensure agricultural safety and supply security. However, in the pursuit of unmanned agronomic applications, there is an urgent challenge: these intelligent systems generally show low accuracy in target detection when relying on visual perception due to fine-grained changes and differing postures of crops. To solve this issue, we proposed a novel multi-target detection approach via incorporating graph representation learning and multi-crossed attention techniques. The proposed model first utilizes a lightweight backbone network to accurately identify the characteristics and conditions of crops. Then, the higher-order graphic feature extractor is designed to comprehensively observe fine-grained features and potential graphic relationships among massive crops, enabling better perception capabilities of agricultural robots, allowing them to adapt to complex environments. Additionally, we can address bilevel routing by combining ghost attention and rotation annotations to handle continuous posture changes during crop growth and mutual occlusion. An extensive set of experiments demonstrated that our proposed approach outperforms various advanced methods of crop detection, achieving identification accuracies up to 89.6% (mAP) and 94.7% (AP50). Ablation studies further proved the preferable stability, of which the parameter size is only 628 Mbyte, while maintaining a high processing speed of 89 frames per second. This provides strong support for application of the technique in smart agriculture production and supply cyber security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural development is one of the most essential needs worldwide. In Norway, the primary foundation of grain production is based on geological and biological features. Existing research is limited to regional-scale yield predictions using artificial intelligence (AI) models, which provide a holistic overview of crop growth. In this paper, the authors propose detecting several field-scale crop types and use this analysis to predict yield production early in the growing season. In this study, the authors utilise a multi-temporal satellite image, meteorological, geographical, and grain production data corpus. The authors extract relevant vegetation indices from satellite images. Furthermore, the authors use field-area-specific features to build a field-based crop type classification model. The proposed model, consisting of a time-distributed network and a gated recurrent unit, can efficiently classify crop types with an accuracy of 70%. In addition, the authors justified that the attention-based multiple-instance learning models could learn semi-labelled agricultural data, and thus, allow realistic early in-season predictions for farmers.

The use of Internet of things (IoT)-based physical sensors to perceive the environment is a prevalent and global approach. However, one major problem is the reliability of physical sensors' nodes, which creates difficulty in a real-time system to identify whether the physical sensor is transmitting correct values or malfunctioning due to external disturbances affecting the system, such as noise. In this paper, the use of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)-based neural networks is proposed as an alternate approach to address this problem. The proposed solution is tested for a smart irrigation system, where a physical sensor is replaced by a neural sensor. The Smart Irrigation System (SIS) contains several physical sensors, which transmit temperature, humidity, and soil moisture data to calculate the transpiration in a particular field. The real-world values are taken from an agriculture field, located in a field of lemons near the Ghadap Sindh province of Pakistan. The LM35 sensor is used for temperature, DHT-22 for humidity, and we designed a customized sensor in our lab for the acquisition of moisture values. The results of the experiment show that the proposed deep learning-based neural sensor predicts the real-time values with high accuracy, especially the temperature values. The humidity and moisture values are also in an acceptable range. Our results highlight the possibility of using a neural network, referred to as a neural sensor here, to complement the functioning of a physical sensor deployed in an agriculture field in order to make smart irrigation systems more reliable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the increased use of information and communication technology (ICT) in agriculture applications has led to the definition of the concept of precision farming or equivalently smart agriculture. In this respect, the latest progress in connectivity, automation, images analysis and artificial intelligence allow farmers to monitor all production phases and, due to the help of automatic procedures, determine better treatments for their farms. One of the main objectives of a smart agriculture system is to improve the yield of the field. From this point of view, the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm plays a key role in precision farming applications due to the fact that the use of IoT sensors provides precise information about the health of the production. In this paper, the results of the recently concluded R&D project ENOTRIA TELLUS are reported. The project aimed at the development of all hardware/software components for implementing a precision farming architecture allowing the farmers to manage and monitor the vineyards' health status. The smart architecture combines various sub-systems (web application, local controllers, unmanned aerial vehicles, multi-spectral cameras, weather sensors etc.) and electronic devices, each of them in charge of performing specific operations: remote data analysis, video processing for vegetation analysis, wireless data exchanges and weather and monitoring data evaluation. Two pilot sites were built where the smart architecture was tested and validated in real scenarios. Experimental activities show that the designed smart agriculture architecture allowed the farmers to properly schedule the various phases of cultivation and harvesting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing crop yield is a significant objective in modern agriculture, with adjusted planting density and rational fertilization strategies standing out as the foremost approaches for attaining such a goal. Through the use of modern artificial intelligence techniques such as genetic algorithms and neural networks, the CPDOS (Crop Planting Density Optimization System), an online intelligent system that can automate the modeling, optimization, and analysis of the two models, was developed in the present study. The goal of the system is to optimize the planting density model and fertilizer application in combination with other computer system development techniques. The CPDOS comprises three main modules: yield density optimization module, optimal planting density range module, and fertilization and planting density optimization module. The three modules are complemented by two modules for data input and result visualization, culminating in the comprehensive process of optimizing planting density and fertilizer allocation through the CPDOS. The CPDOS was tested using potato, corn, and soybean data, and the results show that the optimization effects of planting density and fertilizer application were satisfactory. The CPDOS is an automated crop planting optimization system that integrates algorithms and models and is driven by artificial intelligence technology. The introduction of the CPDOS reduces the barriers to utilizing these algorithms and models, facilitating wider adoption of intelligently optimized planting technology. The platform's launch will accelerate the swift advancement of this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meteorological elements can affect the environment and cultures differently and may alter the natural development process contributing significantly to climate change. Meteorological variables of the Brazilian Pantanal were studied and used to determine evapotranspiration with fewer variables. It was found that artificial intelligence can substantially improve environmental modeling when alternative prediction techniques are used, resulting in lower project costs and more reliable results. This work tried to find the best combination by comparing machine learning techniques such as artificial neural networks, random forests, and support vector machines. A new model was created that depends on fewer climatic variables compared to the Penman–Monteith method (the standard method for estimating reference evapotranspiration) and can efficiently describe the reference evapotranspiration. Machine learning techniques are highly efficient for modeling environmental systems since they can process large amounts of data and find the best interactions between the parameters involved. In addition, more than 98% accuracy was obtained using fewer variables compared to the standard method when artificial neural networks are utilized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of agricultural soil pollution is especially important as it directly affects the quality of food and the lives of humans and animals. Soil pollution is linked to human activities and agricultural practices. The main objective of this study is to assess and predict soil contamination by heavy metals utilizing an innovative method based on the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), an effective artificial intelligence technology, and GIS in a semiarid and dry environment. A total of 150 soil samples were randomly collected in the neighboring area of the Bahr El-Baqar drain. Ordinary kriging (OK) was employed to generate spatial pattern maps for the following heavy metals: chromium (Cr), iron (Fe), cadmium (Cd), and nickel (Ni). The adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), known as one of the most effective applications of artificial intelligence (AI), was utilized to predict soil contamination by the selected heavy metals (Cr, Fe, Cd, and Ni). In total 150 samples were used, 136 soil samples were used for training and 14 for testing. The ANFIS predicting results were compared with the experimental results; this comparison proved its effectiveness, as a root mean square error (RMSE) was 0.048594 in training, and 0.0687 in testing, which is an acceptable result. The results showed that both the exponential and spherical models were quite suitable for Cr, Fe, and Ni. The correlation values (R2) were close to one in training and test; however, the stable model performed well with Cd. The high concentration of heavy metals was the most prevalent, encompassing approximately 51.6% of the study area. Furthermore, the average concentration of heavy metals in this degree was 82.86 ± 15.59 mg kg−1 for Cr, 20,963.84 ± 4447.83 mg kg−1 for Fe, 1.46 ± 0.42 mg kg−1 for Cd, and 48.71 ± 11.88 mg kg−1 for Ni. The comparison clearly demonstrates that utilizing the ANFIS model is a superior option for predicting the level of soil pollution. Ultimately, these findings can serve as a foundation for decision-makers to develop acceptable measures for mitigating heavy metal contamination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) involves the development of algorithms and computational models that enable machines to process and analyze large amounts of data, identify patterns and relationships, and make predictions or decisions based on that analysis. AI has become increasingly pervasive across a wide range of industries and sectors, with healthcare, finance, transportation, manufacturing, retail, education, and agriculture are a few examples to mention. As AI technology continues to advance, it is expected to have an even greater impact on industries in the future. For instance, AI is being increasingly used in the agri-food sector to improve productivity, efficiency, and sustainability. It has the potential to revolutionize the agri-food sector in several ways, including but not limited to precision agriculture, crop monitoring, predictive analytics, supply chain optimization, food processing, quality control, personalized nutrition, and food safety. This review emphasizes how recent developments in AI technology have transformed the agri-food sector by improving efficiency, reducing waste, and enhancing food safety and quality, providing particular examples. Furthermore, the challenges, limitations, and future prospects of AI in the field of food and agriculture are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing countries all over the world face numerous difficulties with regard to food security. The purpose of this research is to develop a new approach for evaluating wheat's suitability for cultivation. To this end, geographical information systems (GIS) and fuzzy inference systems (FIS) are used as the most appropriate artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Outcomes of investigations carried out in the western Nile Delta, Egypt. The fuzzy inference system used was Mamdani type. The membership functions used in this work are sigmoidal, Gaussian, and zmf membership. The inputs in this research are chemical, physical, and fertility soil indices. To predict the final soil suitability using FIS, it is required to implement 81 IF-THEN rules that were written by some experts. The obtained results show the effectiveness of FIS in predicting the wheat crop's suitability compared to conventional methods. The research region is split into four classes: around 241.3 km2 is highly suitable for wheat growth, and 224 km2 is defined as having moderate suitability. The third soil suitability class (low), which comprises 252.73 km2, is larger than the unsuitable class, which comprises 40 km2. The method given here can be easily applied again in an arid region. Decision-makers may benefit from the research's quantitative findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant diseases pose the greatest threat to food supply integrity, and it is a significant challenge to identify plant diseases in their earliest stages to reduce the potential for associated economic damage. Through the use of computer vision, a cutting-edge artificial intelligence is offered as a solution to this problem so that tomato leaf diseases may be classified. The proposed network is expected to provide excellent results. Transfer learning is also used to make the model efficient and cost effective. Since tomato diseases may significantly influence crop output and quality, early identification and diagnosis of these diseases are essential for successful treatment. Deep learning has shown a great deal of promise in plant disease identification, providing excellent accuracy and efficiency. In this investigation, we compared the performance of three different deep learning models—DenseNet169, ResNet50V2, and a transform model, namely ViT, with regard to diagnosing diseases affecting tomatoes. Both diseased and healthy tomato samples were included in the dataset of photos of tomato diseases used for training and testing the models. The DenseNet121 model had the best results, with a training accuracy of (99.88%) and a testing accuracy of (99.00%). This gave it the greatest overall accuracy. Both the ResNet50V2 and VIT models attained high levels of accuracy, with testing accuracies of (95.60% and 98.00%), respectively. Our results demonstrate deep learning's potential for accurate and efficient tomato disease detection, which could aid in early disease management and ultimately improve crop yield and quality. The experimental findings show that the suggested ensemble models stand out due to the short amount of time required for training and testing as well as their exceptional classification performances. Because of this study, professionals will be able to facilitate the early diagnosis of plant diseases in a straightforward and expedient way, thereby preventing the emergence of new infections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing alarming impacts of climate change are already apparent in viticulture, with unexpected pest outbreaks as one of the most concerning consequences. The monitoring of pests is currently done by deploying chromotropic and delta traps, which attracts insects present in the production environment, and then allows human operators to identify and count them. While the monitoring of these traps is still mostly done through visual inspection by the winegrowers, smartphone image acquisition of those traps is starting to play a key role in assessing the pests' evolution, as well as enabling the remote monitoring by taxonomy specialists in better assessing the onset outbreaks. This paper presents a new methodology that embeds artificial intelligence into mobile devices to establish the use of hand-held image capture of insect traps for pest detection deployed in vineyards. Our methodology combines different computer vision approaches that improve several aspects of image capture quality and adequacy, namely: (i) image focus validation; (ii) shadows and reflections validation; (iii) trap type detection; (iv) trap segmentation; and (v) perspective correction. A total of 516 images were collected, divided into three different datasets and manually annotated, in order to support the development and validation of the different functionalities. By following this approach, we achieved an accuracy of 84% for focus detection, an accuracy of 80% and 96% for shadows/reflections detection (for delta and chromotropic traps, respectively), as well as mean Jaccard index of 97% for the trap's segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future trends in climate change, water scarcity, and energy costs will motivate agriculturists to develop innovative agricultural systems. In order to achieve sustainable farming in arid regions, there is an urgent need to use artificial intelligence (AI) to predict and estimate the optimum water and energy requirements for the irrigation of date palms. Therefore, this study aimed to predict the optimum water and energy requirements for date palm irrigation depending on the optimum water use efficiency (WUE) and yield in arid conditions. To achieve this aim, four solar-powered micro irrigation systems were developed and evaluated under six irrigation levels for date palm irrigation. Soil moisture sensor-based controllers were used to automate irrigation scheduling for the micro irrigation systems. The water pumping in these systems was powered using a solar photovoltaic (PV) system. In addition, four machine-learning (ML) algorithms, including linear regression (LR), support vector regression (SVR), long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network, and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), were developed and validated for prediction purposes. These models were developed in Python programing language using the Keras library. The results indicated that the optimum WUS was achieved when the maximum setpoints of irrigation control were adjusted at the field capacity and by adjusting the minimum setpoints at 40, 50, 70, and 80% of the available water (AW). The optimum yield was achieved by adjusting the minimum setpoints at 60, 70, 80, and 90% of AW for subsurface irrigation, subsurface drip irrigation, drip irrigation, and bubbler irrigation, respectively. Therefore, the dataset was prepared at these levels for four years to train and test the models, and a fifth year was used to validate the performance of the best model. The evaluation of the models showed that the LSTM followed by XGBoost models were more accurate than the SVR and LR models for predicting the optimum irrigation water and energy requirements. The validation result showed that the LSTM was able to predict the water and energy requirements for all irrigation systems with R2 ranging from 0.90 to 0.92 based on limited meteorological variables and date palm age. The findings of the current study demonstrated that the developed LSTM model can be a powerful tool in irrigation water and energy management as a fast and easy-to-use approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding and determining soil properties is reflected in improving farm management and crop production. Soil salinity, pH and calcium carbonate are among the factors affecting the soil's physical and chemical properties. Hence, their estimation is very important for agricultural management, especially in arid regions (Wadi Elkobaneyya valley, located in the northwest of Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt). The study objectives were to characterize and develop prediction models for soil salinity, pH and calcium carbonate (CaCO3) using integration soil analysis and spectral reflectance vis-NIR spectroscopy. To achieve the study objectives, three multivariate regression models: Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR), Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) and Least Square-Support Vector Regression (LS-SVR)); and two machine learning algorithms, Random Forest (RF) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) were used. Ninety-six surface soil samples were collected from the study area at depths 0–5 cm. The data were divided into a calibration dataset (70% of the total) and a validation dataset (30% of the total dataset). The obtained results represent that the PLSR model was the best model for soil pH parameters where R2 of calibration and validation predictability = 0.68 and 0.52, respectively. The LS-SVR model was the best model to predict soil Electrical Conductivity (EC) and soil Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) content, with R2 0.70 and 0.74 for calibration and R2 0.26 and 0.47 for validation, respectively. On the other hand, the results of the implemented machine learning algorithm model showed that RF was the best model to predict soil pH and CaCO3, as the R2 was 0.82 for calibration and 0.57 for validation, respectively. Nevertheless, the best model for predicting soil EC was ANN, with an R2 of 0.96 for calibration and 64 for validation. The results show the advantages of machine learning models for predicting soil EC, pH and CaCO3 by Vis-NIR spectroscopy. Therefore, Vis-NIR spectroscopy is considered faster and more cost-efficient and can be further used in environmental monitoring and precision farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foundation of effectively predicting plant disease in the early stage using deep learning algorithms is ideal for addressing food insecurity, inevitably drawing researchers and agricultural specialists to contribute to its effectiveness. The input preprocessor, abnormalities of the data (i.e., incomplete and nonexistent features, class imbalance), classifier, and decision explanation are typical components of a plant disease detection pipeline based on deep learning that accepts an image as input and outputs a diagnosis. Data sets related to plant diseases frequently display a magnitude imbalance due to the scarcity of disease outbreaks in real field conditions. This study examines the effects of several preprocessing methods and class imbalance approaches and deep learning classifiers steps in the pipeline for detecting plant diseases on our data set. We notably want to evaluate if additional preprocessing and effective handling of data inconsistencies in the plant disease pipeline may considerably assist deep learning classifiers. The evaluation's findings indicate that contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) combined with image sharpening and generative adversarial networks (GANs)-based approach for resampling performed the best among the preprocessing and resampling techniques, with an average classification accuracy of 97.69% and an average F1-score of 97.62% when fed through a ResNet-50 as the deep learning classifier. Lastly, this study provides a general workflow of a disease detection system that allows each component to be individually focused on depending on necessity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is closely associated with food and water. Agriculture is the first source of food but the biggest consumer of freshwater. The population is constantly increasing. Smart agriculture is one of the means of achieving food and water security. Smart agriculture can help improve water management and increase agricultural production, thus counteracting rapid population growth requirements. Soil moisture estimation is a critical step in agricultural water management. Soil moisture measurement techniques in situ are point measurements, labor-intensive, time-consuming, tedious, and expensive. We propose, in this research, a new approach to predict soil moisture over vegetation-covered areas from Sentinel-2 images based on a convolutional neural network (CNN). CNN architecture (3) consisting of six convolutional layers, one pooling layer, and two fully connected layers has achieved the highest prediction accuracy. Three well-known criteria including coefficient of determination ( R 2 ), mean absolute error (MAE), and root mean square error (RMSE) are utilized to measure the accuracy of the proposed algorithm. The Red Edge 3, NIR, and SWIR 1 are the most appropriate Sentinel-2 bands for retrieving soil moisture in vegetation-covered areas. Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) are the best indicators. The use of the indicator is more proper than the use of the single Sentinel-2 band as input data for the proposed CNN architecture for predicting soil moisture. However, using combinations "that consist of some number of Sentinel-2 bands" as input data for CNN architecture is better than using each indicator separately or all of them as a group. The best values of the performance metrics were achieved using the sixth combination ( R 2 = 0.7094 ,   MAE = 0.0277 ,   RMSE = 0.0418 ) composed of the Red, Red Edge 1, Red Edge 2, Red Edge 3, NIR, and Red Edge 4 bands as input data to the CNN architecture (3), as well as by using the fifth combination ( R 2 = 0.7015 ,   MAE = 0.0287 ,   RMSE = 0.0424 ) composed of the Red Edge 3, NIR, Red Edge 4, and SWIR 1 bands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to carry out a systematic review of the available literature about smart irrigation systems. It will be focused on systems using artificial intelligence techniques in urban and rural agriculture for soil crops to identify those that are currently being used or can be adapted to urban agriculture. To this end, a modified PRISMA 2020 method is applied, and three search equations are formulated. From those filters, and after a screening process, 170 articles are obtained. These articles are analyzed through VantagePoint, a text processing software. After this, they are taken through a detailed analysis phase in which 50 sources are selected as the most relevant to be read and analyzed by topic. Finally, the different phases of the analysis are used to draw conclusions that might be interesting for researchers working in this specific field or for the general public interested in rural and urban agriculture and its automation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote and non-destructive estimation of leaf area index (LAI) has been a challenge in the last few decades as the direct and indirect methods available are laborious and time-consuming. The recent emergence of high-throughput plant phenotyping platforms has increased the need to develop new phenotyping tools for better decision-making by breeders. In this paper, a novel model based on artificial intelligence algorithms and nadir-view red green blue (RGB) images taken from a terrestrial high throughput phenotyping platform is presented. The model mixes numerical data collected in a wheat breeding field and visual features extracted from the images to make rapid and accurate LAI estimations. Model-based LAI estimations were validated against LAI measurements determined non-destructively using an allometric relationship obtained in this study. The model performance was also compared with LAI estimates obtained by other classical indirect methods based on bottom-up hemispherical images and gaps fraction theory. Model-based LAI estimations were highly correlated with ground-truth LAI. The model performance was slightly better than that of the hemispherical image-based method, which tended to underestimate LAI. These results show the great potential of the developed model for near real-time LAI estimation, which can be further improved in the future by increasing the dataset used to train the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainable use of water resources is of utmost importance given climatological changes and water scarcity, alongside the many socioeconomic factors that rely on clean water availability, such as food security. In this context, developing tools to minimize water waste in irrigation is paramount for sustainable food production. The evapotranspiration estimate is a tool to evaluate the water volume required to achieve optimal crop yield with the least amount of water waste. The Penman-Monteith equation is the gold standard for this task, despite it becoming inapplicable if any of its required climatological variables are missing. In this paper, we present a stochastic Bayesian framework to model the non-linear and non-stationary time series for the evapotranspiration estimate via Bayesian regression. We also leverage Bayesian networks and Bayesian inference to provide estimates for missing climatological data. Our obtained Bayesian regression equation achieves 0.087 mm · day−1 for the RMSE metric, compared to the expected time series, with wind speed and net incident solar radiation as the main components. Lastly, we show that the evapotranspiration time series, with missing climatological data inferred by the Bayesian network, achieves an RMSE metric ranging from 0.074 to 0.286 mm · day−1.

Early prediction of winter wheat yield at the regional scale is essential for food policy making and food security, especially in the context of population growth and climate change. Agricultural big data and artificial intelligence (AI) are key technologies for smart agriculture, bringing cost-effective solutions to the agricultural sector. Deep learning-based crop yield forecast has currently emerged as one of the key methods for guiding agricultural production. In this study, we proposed a Bayesian optimization-based long- and short-term memory model (BO-LSTM) to construct a multi-source data fusion-driven crop growth feature extraction algorithm for winter wheat yield prediction. The yield prediction performance of BO-LSTM, support vector machine (SVM), and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) was then compared with multi-source data as input variables. The results showed that effective deep learning hyperparameter optimization is made possible by Bayesian optimization. The BO-LSTM (RMSE = 177.84 kg/ha, R2 = 0.82) model had the highest accuracy of yield prediction with the input combination of "GPP + Climate + LAI + VIs". BO-LSTM and SVM (RMSE = 185.7 kg/ha, R2 = 0.80) methods outperformed linear regression Lasso (RMSE = 214.5 kg/ha, R2 = 0.76) for winter wheat yield estimation. There were also differences between machine learning and deep learning, BO-LSTM outperformed SVM. indicating that the BO-LSTM model was more effective at capturing data correlations. In order to further verify the robustness of the BO-LSTM method, we explored the performance estimation performance of BO-LSTM in different regions. The results demonstrated that the BO-LSTM model could obtain higher estimation accuracy in regions with concentrated distribution of winter wheat cultivation and less influence of human factors. The approach used in this study can be expected to forecast crop yields, both in regions with a deficit of data and globally; it can also simply and effectively forecast winter wheat yields in a timely way utilizing publicly available multi-source data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medicinal plants have always been studied and considered due to their high importance for preserving human health. However, identifying medicinal plants is very time-consuming, tedious and requires an experienced specialist. Hence, a vision-based system can support researchers and ordinary people in recognising herb plants quickly and accurately. Thus, this study proposes an intelligent vision-based system to identify herb plants by developing an automatic Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The proposed Deep Learning (DL) model consists of a CNN block for feature extraction and a classifier block for classifying the extracted features. The classifier block includes a Global Average Pooling (GAP) layer, a dense layer, a dropout layer, and a softmax layer. The solution has been tested on 3 levels of definitions (64 × 64, 128 × 128 and 256 × 256 pixel) of images for leaf recognition of five different medicinal plants. As a result, the vision-based system achieved more than 99.3% accuracy for all the image definitions. Hence, the proposed method effectively identifies medicinal plants in real-time and is capable of replacing traditional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decades, researchers have developed novel computing methods to help viticulturists solve their problems, primarily those linked to yield estimation of their crops. This article aims to summarize the existing research associated with computer vision and viticulture. It focuses on approaches that use RGB images directly obtained from parcels, ranging from classic image analysis methods to Machine Learning, including novel Deep Learning techniques. We intend to produce a complete analysis accessible to everyone, including non-specialized readers, to discuss the recent progress of artificial intelligence (AI) in viticulture. To this purpose, we present work focusing on detecting grapevine flowers, grapes, and berries in the first sections of this article. In the last sections, we present different methods for yield estimation and the problems that arise with this task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this technologically advanced era, with the proliferation of artificial intelligence, many mobile apps are available for plant disease detection, diagnosis, and treatment, each with a variety of features. These apps need to be categorized and reviewed following a proper framework that ensures their quality. This study aims to present an approach to evaluating plant disease detection mobile apps, which includes providing ratings of distinct features of the apps and insights into the exploitation of artificial intelligence used in plant disease detection. The applicability of these apps for pathogen or disease detection, identification, and treatment will be assessed along with significant insights garnered. For this purpose, plant disease detection apps were searched in three prominent app stores (the Google Play store, Apple App store, and Microsoft store) using a set of keywords. A total of 606 apps were found and from them, 17 relevant apps were identified based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The selected apps were reviewed by three raters using our devised app rating scale. To validate the rater agreements on the ratings, inter-rater reliability is computed alongside their intra-rater reliability, ensuring their rating consistency. Also, the internal consistency of our rating scale was evaluated against all selected apps. User comments from the app stores are collected and analyzed to understand their expectations and views. Following the rating procedure, most apps earned acceptable ratings in software quality characteristics such as aesthetics, usability, and performance but gained poor ratings in AI-based advanced functionality, which is the key aspect of this study. However, most of the apps cannot be used as a complete solution to plant disease detection, diagnosis, and treatment. Only one app, Plantix–your crop doctor, could successfully identify plants from images, detect diseases, maintain a rich plant database, and suggest potential treatments for the disease presented. It also provides a community where plant lovers can communicate with each other to gain additional benefits. In general, all existing apps need to improve functionalities, user experience, and software quality. Therefore, a set of design considerations has been proposed for future app improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study focused on the development, optimization, and performance evaluation of a harvesting robot for heavyweight agricultural products. The main objective of developing this system is to improve the harvesting process of the mentioned crops. The pumpkin was selected as a heavyweight target crop for this study. The main components of the robot consist of mobile platforms (the main robot tractor and a parallel robot tractor), a manipulation system and its end-effector, and an integrated control unit. The development procedure was divided into four stages: stage I (designed system using Solidworks), stage II (installation of the developed system on a temporary platform), stage III (developed system on an RT-1 (Yanmar EG453)), and stage IV (developed system on an RT-2 (Yanmar YT5113)). Various indicators related to the performance of the robot were evaluated. The accuracy of 5.8 and 4.78 mm in x and y directions and repeatability of 5.11 mm were observed. The harvesting success rate of 87~92%, and damage rate of 5% resulted in the evaluation of the final version. The average cycle time was 35.1 s, 42.6 s, and 43.2 s for stages II, III, and IV, respectively. The performance evaluations showed that the system's indicators are good enough to harvest big-sized and heavy-weighted crops. Development of the unique and unified system, including a mobile platform, a manipulation system, an end-effector, and an integrated algorithm, completed the targeted harvesting process appropriately. The system can increase the speed and improve the harvesting process because it can work all day long, has a precise robotic manipulation and end-effector, and a programmable controlling system that can work autonomously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explainable artificial intelligence has been extensively studied recently. However, the research of interpretable methods in the agricultural field has not been systematically studied. We studied the interpretability of deep learning models in different agricultural classification tasks based on the fruit leaves dataset. The purpose is to explore whether the classification model is more inclined to extract the appearance characteristics of leaves or the texture characteristics of leaf lesions during the feature extraction process. The dataset was arranged into three experiments with different categories. In each experiment, the VGG, GoogLeNet, and ResNet models were used and the ResNet-attention model was applied with three interpretable methods. The results show that the ResNet model has the highest accuracy rate in the three experiments, which are 99.11%, 99.4%, and 99.89%, respectively. It is also found that the attention module could improve the feature extraction of the model, and clarify the focus of the model in different experiments when extracting features. These results will help agricultural practitioners better apply deep learning models to solve more practical problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lentinula edodes logs are susceptible to sundry bacteria contamination during the culture process, and the manual identification of contaminated logs is difficult, untimely, and inaccurate. Aiming to solve this problem, this paper proposes a method for the identification of contaminated Lentinula edodes logs based on the deep learning model Ghost–YOLOv4. Firstly, a data set of Lentinula edodes log sundry bacteria contamination was constructed. Secondly, in view of the problems that the YOLOv4 network parameters are too large and that the detection speeds of Lentinula edodes log videos are slow, the backbone feature extraction network was replaced with a lightweight network, GhostNet, and the YOLOv4 enhancement feature extraction network PANet and the Yolo Head modules were completed. The modification of the network reduced the number of parameters of the network and improved the detection speed of the network. Finally, the feature extraction network introduced the migration learning pre-training model, which reduced the computational pressure and overfitting problems of the model and further improved the performance of the Ghost–YOLOv4 network. Not only did the constructed Ghost–YOLOv4 ensure the accuracy of the identification and detection of Lentinula edodes log sundry bacteria contamination, but it also had better results in detection speed and real-time performance, and it provides an effective solution for the lightweight deployment of a target detection model on embedded equipment in culture sheds.

The use of Internet of things (IoT)-based physical sensors to perceive the environment is a prevalent and global approach. However, one major problem is the reliability of physical sensors’ nodes, which creates difficulty in a real-time system to identify whether the physical sensor is transmitting correct values or malfunctioning due to external disturbances affecting the system, such as noise. In this paper, the use of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)-based neural networks is proposed as an alternate approach to address this problem. The proposed solution is tested for a smart irrigation system, where a physical sensor is replaced by a neural sensor. The Smart Irrigation System (SIS) contains several physical sensors, which transmit temperature, humidity, and soil moisture data to calculate the transpiration in a particular field. The real-world values are taken from an agriculture field, located in a field of lemons near the Ghadap Sindh province of Pakistan. The LM35 sensor is used for temperature, DHT-22 for humidity, and we designed a customized sensor in our lab for the acquisition of moisture values. The results of the experiment show that the proposed deep learning-based neural sensor predicts the real-time values with high accuracy, especially the temperature values. The humidity and moisture values are also in an acceptable range. Our results highlight the possibility of using a neural network, referred to as a neural sensor here, to complement the functioning of a physical sensor deployed in an agriculture field in order to make smart irrigation systems more reliable.

In Taiwan, mushrooms are an agricultural product with high nutritional value and economic benefit. However, global warming and climate change have affected plant quality. As a result, technological greenhouses are replacing traditional tin houses as locations for mushroom planting. These greenhouses feature several complex parameters. If we can reduce the complexity such greenhouses and improve the efficiency of their production management using intelligent schemes, technological greenhouses could become the expert assistants of farmers. In this paper, the main goal of the developed system is to measure the mushroom size and to count the amount of mushrooms. According to the results of each measurement, the growth rate of the mushrooms can be estimated. The proposed system also records the data of the mushrooms and broadcasts them to the mobile phone of the farmer. This improves the effectiveness of the production management. The proposed system is based on the convolutional neural network of deep learning, which is used to localize the mushrooms in the image. A positioning correction method is also proposed to modify the localization result. The experiments show that the proposed system has a good performance concerning the image measurement of mushrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of agriculture in environmental degradation and climate change has been at the center of a long-lasting and controversial debate. This situation combined with the expected growth in crop demand and the increasing prices of fertilizers and pesticides has made the need for a more resource-efficient and environmentally sustainable agriculture more evident than ever. Precision agriculture (PA), as a relatively new farming management concept, aims to improve crop performance as well as to reduce the environmental footprint by utilizing information about the temporal and the spatial variability of crops. Information and communication technology (ICT) systems have influenced and shaped every part of modern life, and PA is no exception. The current paper conducts a literature review of prominent ICT solutions, focusing on their role in supporting different phases of the lifecycle of PA-related data. In addition to this, a data lifecycle model was developed as part of a novel categorization approach for the analyzed solutions.