Real-Time Monitoring Model for

Early Detection of Crop Disease

Toroitich Patrick Kiplimo
049063

Background of the study

Agriculture is the backbone of Kenyas economy and central to the
Government of Kenyas development strategy. More than 75% of Kenyans
make some part of their living in agriculture, and the sector accounts for
more than a fourth of Kenyas gross domestic product (GDP).
Pests and diseases cause heavy losses through deaths, reduced
productivity and loss of markets for products. Crop pests and diseases
reduce yields substantially, sometimes by over 50 per cent or even total
crop failure. Measures to prevent, control and eradicate diseases and
pests in livestock and crops play a major role in improving productivity
(Government of Kenya (GOK), 2010)

Problem Statement
Early detection of crop diseases still remains a challenge for farmers
in Kenya. This is because majority of the agricultural extension officer
lack knowledge in plant disease diagnosis and are prone to prescribe
ineffective management options to farmers. (Otipa, et al., 2015)
According to (Ghaiwat & Arora, 2014) plant disease diagnosis is very
essential at an earlier stage in order to cure and control them. The
authors further note that human vision systems are mostly used to
identify crop diseases. Such techniques are prone to inaccuracy as
diagnosis of the diseases are based on the perception and experiences
of the farmer or agricultural extension worker.

Research Objectives
i. To find out the challenges associated with early crop disease
detection
ii. To investigate the problems associated with the current methods
applied in the prediction of potato diseases.
iii. To review the existing models, mobile applications, techniques
and architectures for disease identification and prediction in
crops
iv. To develop a model for potato late blight disease prediction
v. To validate the model

Research Questions
i. What are the challenges are associated with early
detection of crop diseases?
ii. What problems are associated with the current methods
applied in prediction of potato diseases?
iii. What are the existing models, mobile applications and
architectures used for crop disease prediction?
iv. How will the prediction based model be designed?
v. How will the prediction based model be validated?

Justification
Existing systems for forecasting the disease mostly rely on visual
based image processing systems. The limitation of such systems is
that they can only be utilized when symptoms appear on a plant, thus
such type of systems are unable to assist farmers in treating
diseases at an early stage. (Sarika & Sanjeev, 2014)
According to (Soon , Yong , Kyu , Sung, & Eun Woo , 2010), disease
forecasts play an important role in determining when to use
pesticides. They mention that a weather detection, monitoring and
early warning system can provide reliable and timely information to
the farmers to deal with weather and climate variability and changes.

Scope
The scope of this study is limited to small holder farming
systems in Kenya more specifically to those practicing potato
farming.
The study will lay its focus on use of soil ph., soil temperature
and soil moisture for real time monitoring and prediction of
the occurrence of late blight of potato disease. These input
readings will be used to train artificial agent such as Rapid
miner to deduce risk of late blight disease infection and offer
advice on how to mitigate and control the situation.

(Phytophtho
ra infestans)

Potato

Late blight of
potato Disease

Soil moisture, relative

humidity, soil temperature

Author
(Maina,
2016)

(Sandika ,
Bhushan ,
Bir , & Mehi,
2014)

Title

Related works

Vision-Based
Model for
Maize Leaf
Disease
Identification

Severity
Identification
of Potato Late
Blight Disease
from Crop
Images
Captured
under
Uncontrolled

Working Principles

Weaknesses

utilized
artificial
neural
network in identifying maize
leaf disease by implementing
back
propagation
learning
algorithm. model utilizes a
smartphone camera to take an
image a plant after which pixels
are extracted and used as input
to
determine
a
particular
disease

abiotic stress factors such as

pH of the soil, weather
conditions were not considered
as inputs to the system so as to
give a more accurate
classification.

The key contribution of the Focuses on identification of disease and

study was an algorithm to optimum use of pesticides
determine the severity of Potato
Late Blight disease using image
processing
techniques
and
neural network. The algorithm
consists of two steps i.e. fuzzy
c-mean clustering to separate
the disease affected area along
with background and a neural

Related works
Author

Title

Working Principles

Weaknesses

(Vidita , Jignesh,
& Chetan , 2013)

Weather based plant

diseases forecasting
using fuzzy logic

The authors developed a weather based plant Real time aspect of crop and farm
disease forecasting framework using fuzzy logic. variable monitoring

(Divya,
Manjunath, &
Ravindra, 2014)

A Study on
Developing Analytical
Model for Groundnut
Pest Management
using Data Mining
Techniques

Developed a predictive model to understand the

effect of groundnut Thrips under dynamics of
crop-weather-pest relations using data mining
techniques. The authors worked with micro-level
weather data (Temperature, Humidity and Leaf
Wetness)

(Mayur, Mayur,
Akshay, &
Sachin, 2016)

Smart farming using

Arduino and data
mining

The authors in the study proposed an automatic

plant watering system using Arduino and android.
The android application provided information on
soil moisture level, type of soil needed, weather
forecast, fertilizers, and pesticides to be used.

Agricultural Applications
Author

Title

Principles

Weaknesses

(Helen, et al., 2015)

Kilimo salama

an insurance product protecting farmers' investment in farm

inputs (seed, fertilizer and chemicals) against extreme
weather risk (Drought or excess rainfall) using solar
powered weather stations to monitor rainfall and mobile
payment technology to collect premiums and payout to
farmers

lacks capabilities of predicting farmers productivity

as well as it does not provide for early crop disease
recognition services

(Shepherd, 2010)

Africa Soil
information services

The project aims at developing a practical, timely, costeffective, soil health surveillance service to map soil
conditions, providing a foundation for monitoring changes
and to provide options for improved soil management.

AFSIS relies on a global soil database which might

not reflect current changes at real time on soil
properties

(Mulligan, 2015)

Farmdrive

a web-based record-keeping application that helps farmers to

maintain revenue and expense records.

lack use of machine learning algorithm approaches for

decision support.
Focuses on credit worthiness of a farmer

Related Works
Author

Title

Principles

Weaknesses

(Arsenault, 2015)

Mbeguchoice

online tool, has mapped seed varieties for

all 47 counties. allows a smallholder farmer
get information on the specific seed variety
that would do well in their area while
allowing them to choose other attributes that
may interest them

lack use of machine learning algorithm

approaches for decision support.

(David, 2010)

Esoko

Esoko provides a suite of applications that a

network can use to push and pull information to
targeted and profiled users. The service started as
a piece of software to push market prices out to
farmers via SMS alerts

They do not offer crop disease early

warning decision support
Its prime focus is on access to markets and
supply chain

Conceptual framework

Research Methodology
Research design

Applied

Research Site

Elgeyo Marakwett County

Research instruments

Questionnaires, interviews, internet sources

System Development Methodology

Evolutionary Rapid Prototyping

Population and Sampling

Purposive sampling

Target

Potato Farmers

Research Design
Applied research design is proposed for this study. Applied
research is original investigation undertaken in order to
acquire new knowledge.

System Development
Methodology
In the development of the application, an Evolutionary rapid prototyping
software development approach will be used. Rapid application development
(RAD) is an object-oriented approach to systems development that includes a
method of development as well as software tools

System Development
Methodology
The objective of evolutionary prototyping is to deliver a
working system to end-users The development starts with
those requirements which are best understood.
Accelerated delivery of the system
Rapid delivery and deployment are sometimes
more
important than functionality or long-term
software
maintainability
User engagement with the system
Not only is the system more likely to meet user
requirements, they are more likely to commit to
the use
of the system

System Design Representations

Use Case Diagrams

Data Flow diagrams
Activity Diagrams
System Sequence Diagrams
Class Diagrams

Population and Sampling

Purposeful sampling strategy will be adopted. Purposive
or purposeful is a non-probability sampling strategy in
which the researcher sampling selects participants who
are considered to be typical of the wider population
(Singh, 2007).

Research Instruments
Questionnaires, both open and closed ended, are sent to
the target population. Questionnaires are more
advantageous over other research instruments because
they are cheap and do not need as much effort from
the questioner as other research instruments.
Further, data collected is first hand and can thus be an
authentic source of research data.

Research Instruments
Interviews will be used to capture, firsthand the perspective
and views of the selected farmers. Structured interviews are
better given that they have a structured set of questions
which systematically builds up on the questions towards the
bigger picture.
Internet sources will be used to gather data on related
information to the researchers area of study. This will be
useful in identifying the gaps that would be filled in by the
research

Validation of Research
Instruments
The use of structured interviewing allows for the preparation of questions
prior to any interview to ensure that the desired information is
collected from the respondents. This research will be designed in a
way that it will enable the researcher to identify directly the
respondents to interview. The individuals with the highest probability of
giving the most accurate responses will be in most cases be considered.
Use of the Liker scaling measurement will enable the researcher to rank
the respondents opinions, regarding their perception of the prototype as
suggested by this research. This will enable the researcher the ability
to quantify the respondents' opinions using the scale.

Five sequential steps involved in

questionnaire development and testing

Data Collection Procedures

Qualitative data collection and quantitative data collection
will be used to collect data for the study.
Quantitative focuses on the number of responses received
or the number of downloads of the application collected.
Qualitative dwells on the value of the features in the
application as experienced by the users

Scales of Measurement
Before you begin your analysis, you must identify the level of measurement
associated with the quantitative data. The level of measurement can influence
the type of analysis you can use. There are four levels of measurement:
Nominal : Nominal data A nominal scale is one in which numbers are only
used as labels. For example, if we want to categorize male and female
respondents, we could use a nominal scale of 1 for male, and 2 for female, but
1 and 2 in this case do not represent any order or distance.
Ordinal: Ordinal data data has a logical order, but the differences between
values are not constant (for example, strongly agree, agree, disagree,
strongly disagree).

Scale of Measurement
Interval: data is continuous and has a logical order, data
has standardized differences between values, but no
natural zero
Example: Items measured on a Likert scale rank your
satisfaction on scale of 1-5.
1 = Very Dissatisfied,2 = Dissatisfied, 3 = Neutral,4 =
Satisfied,5 = Very satisfied

Data analysis
Likert Scales : A psychometric response scale primarily
used in questionnaires to obtain participants preferences
or degree of agreement with a statement or set of
statements.
2statistic (CHI): Chi-square is a statistical test commonly
used to compare observed data with data we would expect
to obtain according to a specific hypothesis.

Data Analysis Tool and Results

Presentation
Analysis Tool SPSS
Visualization : Use graphs in addition to text and tables to
communicate the results

Research Ethical consideration

The researcher will seek permission before using names and data of
individuals during data collection. The researcher will explain the
purpose of the study to all participants during questionnaire
administration.
Any personal information that will be given by the participants willingly
or unwillingly will be treated as confidential and stored privately so as not to
infringe on the privacy rights of the participants.
No participant will be forced to participate in the study for the purposes of
getting enough feedback. Relevant persons will be consulted and working
principles will be accepted by all. All Reference material used will be duly
referenced in this research.

Item

Research Requirements

Arduino Kit

Specification

Type

Arduino Uno, 3G/GPRS/GSM Shield for

Hardware

Arduino with GPS - European version

SIM5320E, Soil Temperature/Moisture Sensor
- SHT10

Server

Hp Core I7, 8GB Ram or greater, 2TB Storage

Android mobile phone

Android version 4.0 and above

Interactive Development Environment

Android studio, Arduino IDE,Eclipse

Machine learning

Rapid Miner

Testing Environment

Kaa Sandbox

Software

Research Project Schedule

Activities

1.

Scoping of Research Study

1st - 30th Sept 2016

2.

Research problem clarification, research objectives, purpose and

3rd 10th October 2016

Proposed Dates

significance
3.

Literature Review

4.

Concept Proposal Presentation

5.

Draft Proposal of Research methodology

22nd October 21st November 2016

6.

Proposal Defense

24th November 2016

7.

Prototype design and Development

2nd December 2016 15th January 2017

Data Collection

3rd January - 24th January 2017

9.

Analysis

2nd February- 15th February 2017

10.

Research Report writing First draft

20th February 15th March 2017

11.

Final draft of Research Report

20th March 2017

12.

Submission of research for examination

21st March 5th April 2017

15th 31st October 2016

References

Adams, M. L., Cook, S., & Corner, R. (2000). Managing Uncertainty in Site-Specific Management: What is the Best Model? Precision
Agriculture, 3954. doi:10.1023/A:1009984516714

Ahamed, A., Mahmood, N. T., Nazmul , H., Mohammad , T. K., Kallal, D., Faridur, R., & Rashedur, M. R. (2015). Applying Data Mining
Techniques to Predict Annual Yield of Major Crops and Recommend Planting Different Crops in Different Districts in Bangladesh. 2015
16th IEEE/ACIS International Conference on Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Networking and Parallel/Distributed Computing
(SNPD), (pp. 1-6). Takamatsu. doi:10.1109/SNPD.2015.7176185

Apple, A., & Fry, W. E. (1983). Potato Late Blight Fact Sheet Page. Retrieved 11 15, 2016, from Cornell University:
http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/factsheets/Potato_LateBlt1983.htm

Arsenault, C. (2015, June 10). New app to connect Kenyan farmers with climate-smart seeds. Retrieved from Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/food-africa-climate-idUSL5N0YW1W220150610

Campbell, C., & Madden, L. (1990). Introduction to plant disease epidemiology. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

David, O. W. (2010). Esoko Networks: facilitating agriculture through technology. Ghana.

Questions