Deep Learning-based Bean Leaf Disease Classification: A Comparison of ResNet50 and VGG19

Abstract

Background: Legumes, such as beans, are important in worldwide agriculture because of their nutritional value and soil-enriching qualities. However, bean crops are susceptible to diseases such as angular leaf spot and rust, which may reduce production and quality. Disease identification that is both effective and timely is essential to crop health and output. Traditional diagnostic approaches are often labor-intensive and susceptible to inaccuracy. Recent advances in deep learning (DL) provide interesting possibilities for automating disease categorization, possibly improving accuracy and efficiency. Methods: This study evaluates and compares the performance of two deep learning architectures, ResNet50 and VGG19, for the classification of bean leaf diseases. The dataset, sourced from Kaggle, comprises 1295 images categorized into three classes: Angular Leaf Spot, Rust and Healthy. Both systems relied on pre-trained ImageNet weights, with adjustments customized to the classification objective. The models were trained for 25 epochs and their performance was assessed based on overall accuracy. Result: The performance of the models is evaluated in terms of the confusion matrix, classification report and ROC(AUC) curves. The ResNet50 model achieved an overall accuracy of 93.75%, while the VGG19 model attained an accuracy of 91.41%. The findings indicate that ResNet50 performs better than VGG19 in terms of classification accuracy. This work demonstrates ResNet50’s performance for bean leaf disease classification tasks, providing important insights for future research and practical applications in agricultural disease control.