Enhancing Crop Health: Advanced Machine Learning Techniques for Prediction Disease in Palm Oil Tree

¹ Department of CS & IT, Kalinga University, Raipur, India
² Research Scholar, Department of CS & IT, Kalinga University, Raipur, India

^* Corresponding author: ku.manishnandy@kalingauniversity.ac.in

Abstract

Palm oil trees are one of the key crops in the world's agricultural economy yet they are vulnerable to a number of diseases which can reduce yields substantially. Currently disease detection and management is usually labor intensive and slow, thus delays in detection and response and increased losses in yields. This study uses a hybrid machine learning approach to enhance prediction and management of palm oil tree diseases. This study builds predictive models by using a palmd database comprised of the large datasets of palm oil tree health indicators, environmental factors and historical disease outbreaks to identify early signs of disease with high accuracy.To analyze both structured as well as unstructured data multiple machine learning algorithms were used such as Random Forest, Support Vector Machines, Convolution Neural Networks. Environmental variables like temperatures, humidity and soil conditions; as well as features of the leaves, including their texture and shape were given as input features to the trained models. To increase the spatial resolution and coverage of our predictions, we also included remote sensing data and imagery from various drones, satellites, which generate data from all over the nation.As it turns out, these machine learning models do a far better job predicting the onset of diseases in palm oil trees than typical statistical methods. In disease prediction, the best model turns out to be a hybrid of CNNs with environmental data which had an accuracy of 92%. Intervention can be made prior to disease spread and at the least economic losses by using precision. This study has very profound implications—providing a scalable, low cost procedure for observing palm oil tree health. The application of these advanced techniques enables the agricultural stakeholders to enhance disease management practices to make palm oil cultivation more sustainable and productive. The culmination of ths work will improve the accuracy and adoption to other crops of these better models and thus improve the resilience of global agriculture to disease.