Detection of downy mildew disease present in the grape leaves based on fuzzy set theory

Abstract

Agriculture has a significant role in economy of the most of the developing countries. A significant amount of crops are damaged in every year due to fungi, fungus, bacteria, Phytoplasmas, bad weather etc. Grapes are one of the most widely grown fruit crops in the world with significant plantings in India. Grapes are used in the production of wine, brandy, or non-fermented drinks and are eaten fresh or dried as raisins. Sometimes grape plants are affected by downy mildew, a serious fungal disease. Therefore, farmers try to detect the stage of the disease in plant at an early stage so that they can take necessary steps in order to prevent the disease from spreading to others parts of the fields. This article presents a novel technique for detection of downy mildew disease present in the grape leaves based on fuzzy importance factor. The proposed technique uses some digital image processing operations and fuzzy set theory concept. We experimented on thirty one diseased and nondiseased images and got 87.09% success. The experimental results reveal that the proposed technique can effectively detect the present of downy mildew disease in the grape leaves. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.