A Comprehensive Hybrid Model For Apple Fruit Disease Detection Using Multi-Architecture Feature Extraction

The agriculture industry is critical to the global economy, with product quality having a direct impact on marketability and waste management. Apples, one of the most extensively produced fruits, are affected by a variety of diseases that can reduce productivity and quality. Accurate diagnosis of diseases is critical, but traditional manual approaches are time-consuming, error-prone, and ineffective. Inadequate labeled data and a wide range of disease symptoms make it necessary to design an automated, robust, and accurate system. This article describes a hybrid model for Apple Fruit Disease Detection (HMAFDD) that combines the strengths of three pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN) models: ResNet50, DenseNet121, and EfficientNetB0. It accomplish this by using multi-architecture feature extraction. The hybrid system, which combines both models, is able to recognize a wide range of features, from simple textures to complex patterns unique to a certain diseases. Grad-CAM, or gradient-weighted class activation mapping, creates heatmaps that highlight significant regions for prediction, which enhances the interpretability of the model.To increase robustness and accuracy, techniques such as spectral-shifted adversarial perturbation for data augmentation and spectrally-weighted global average pooling for feature aggregation are used. This technique provides 99.75% accuracy with minimal processing needs, making it acceptable for real-time applications in agricultural situations. This considerably improves apple disease management.