Diagnoses crop diseases with AI
Liu Yichen, a 29-year-old man, is the founder and head of Hunan Dajiang Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd, which focuses on biological control and smart agriculture.
Liu and his team have developed a cutting-edge technology for diagnosing crop diseases. Users can quickly identify crop pests or diseases by pointing their phone cameras at a potentially affected rice spike, taking a picture, and uploading it to the smartphone app.
Farmers refer to this app as a "plant pocket doctor." This technological breakthrough earned Liu's team the gold medal at the 10th "Chuang Qing Chun" China Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition (Rural Revitalization Special). Behind this honor lies five years of dedicated work.
The most challenging aspect of their technological development was not designing AI algorithms but building a huge database.
To overcome this hurdle, Liu's team collaborated with their alma mater, Hunan University of Technology, forming a team of over 100 people to collect images of various crop diseases. Besides, partnerships with Hunan Agricultural University, Sichuan Agricultural University, and various local agricultural research institutes facilitated to create a comprehensive database on pest and disease prevention.
"We've curated 20 million images of plant diseases covering 39 types of crops, including rice and wheat, and established over 320 models for crop pest and disease identification," said Liu.
Supported by the database and AI algorithm, farmers need only point their smartphone cameras at a potentially infected crop, take a photo, upload it, select the plant type for identification, and the screen will display images and informative text about the disease within seconds, along with recommended prevention strategies and medications. Facing complex situations, users can seek advice from a team of over 10 agricultural experts on the platform.
Now, the app is freely open to individuals, with 310,000 users registered nationwide.
"'Plant pocket doctor' possesses an open-source pest and disease database, enabling precise identification and effectively reducing pesticide residues on crops," Liu highlighted.
Their technology aligns with rural revitalization and agricultural digitization. Despite freely offering the service to farmers, the company still makes profits by showing advertisements on the user interface and offering extra services such agricultural mapping.
This innovative app is welcomed by local farmers and has earned recognition from the local government, which thus helps promote it among rural areas.
Industry experts predict that widespread adoption of this technological system could open up a new frontier in digital agriculture.
Source： China Youth Daily；trans-editing by Guo Yao