LT-DeepLab: an improved DeepLabV3+ cross-scale segmentation algorithm for Zanthoxylum bungeanum Maxim leaf-trunk diseases in real-world environments

IntroductionZanthoxylum bungeanum Maxim is an economically significant crop in Asia, but large-scale cultivation is often threatened by frequent diseases, leading to significant yield declines. Deep learning-based methods for crop disease recognition have emerged as a vital research area in agriculture.MethodsThis paper presents a novel model, LT-DeepLab, for the semantic segmentation of leaf spot (folium macula), rust, frost damage (gelu damnum), and diseased leaves and trunks in complex field environments. The proposed model enhances DeepLabV3+ with an innovative Fission Depth Separable with CRCC Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling module, which reduces the structural parameters of Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling module and improves cross-scale extraction capability. Incorporating Criss-Cross Attention with the Convolutional Block Attention Module provides a complementary boost to channel feature extraction. Additionally, deformable convolution enhances low-dimensional features, and a Fully Convolutional Network auxiliary header is integrated to optimize the network and enhance model accuracy without increasing parameter count.ResultsLT-DeepLab improves the mean Intersection over Union (mIoU) by 3.59%, the mean Pixel Accuracy (mPA) by 2.16%, and the Overall Accuracy (OA) by 0.94% compared to the baseline DeepLabV3+. It also reduces computational demands by 11.11% and decreases the parameter count by 16.82%.DiscussionThese results indicate that LT-DeepLab demonstrates excellent disease segmentation capabilities in complex field environments while maintaining high computational efficiency, offering a promising solution for improving crop disease management efficiency.