Mango leaf disease diagnosis using Total Variation Filter Based Variational Mode Decomposition

Mango leaf diseases significantly threaten mango cultivation, impacting both yield and quality. Accurate and early diagnosis is essential for effectively managing and controlling these diseases. This study introduces a novel approach for diagnosing mango leaf diseases, leveraging Total Variation Filter-based Variational Mode Decomposition. The proposed method enhances the extraction of disease-specific features from leaf images by decomposing them into intrinsic mode functions while simultaneously reducing noise and preserving important edge information. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method effectively isolates relevant patterns associated with various mango leaf diseases, improving diagnostic accuracy compared to traditional methods. Deep learning models, DenseNet121 and VGG-19, are used for feature extraction from sub-band images, and extracted features are concatenated and fed to Random Forest for classification. Utilizing tenfold cross-validation, our model demonstrated enhanced classification accuracy (98.85 %), specificity (99.37 %), and sensitivity (98.0 %) in detecting diseases from Mango leaf images. Feature maps and Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping analysis was conducted to visualize and scrutinize the essential regions crucial for accurate predictions. Statistical analysis indicates that our proposed architecture outperforms pre-trained models and existing mango leaf disease detection methods. This diagnostic approach can be a rapid disease detection tool for imaging specialists utilizing leaf images. The robustness and efficiency of the presented work in handling complex and noisy image data make it a promising tool for automated agricultural disease diagnosis systems, facilitating timely and precise interventions in mango orchards.