AUTHOR=Goyal S. B. , Malik Varun , Rajawat Anand Singh , Khan Mudassir , Ikram Amna , Alabdullah Bayan , Almjally Abrar 

TITLE=Smart intercropping system to detect leaf disease using hyperspectral imaging and hybrid deep learning for precision agriculture

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=Volume 16 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2025.1662251

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2025.1662251

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=IntroductionThe rapid growth of the global population and intensive agricultural activities has posed serious environmental challenges. In response, there is an increasing demand for sustainable agricultural solutions that ensure efficient resource utilization while maintaining ecological balance. Among these, intercropping has gained prominence as a viable method, promoting enhanced land use efficiency and fostering environment for crop development. However, disease management in intercropping systems remains complex due to the potential for cross-infection and overlapping disease symptoms among crops. Early and precise illness recognition is, therefore, critical for sustaining crop condition and efficiency.MethodsThis study introduces an intelligent intercropping framework for early leaf disease detection, utilizing hyperspectral imaging and hybrid deep learning models for precision agriculture. Hyperspectral imaging captures intricate biochemical and structural variations in crops like maize, soybean, pea, and cucumber—subtle markers of disease that are otherwise imperceptible. These images enable accurate identification of diseases such as rust, leaf spot, and complex co-infections. To refine disease region segmentation and improve detection accuracy, the proposed model employs the synergistic swarm optimization (SSO) algorithm. A phase attention fusion network (PANet) is utilized for deep feature extraction, minimizing false detection rates. Furthermore, a dual-stage Kepler optimization (DSKO) algorithm addresses the challenge of high-dimensional data by choosing the most applicable landscapes. The disease classification is performed using a random deep convolutional neural network (R-DCNN).Results and discussionExperimental evaluations were conducted using publicly available hyperspectral datasets for maize–soybean and pea–cucumber intercropping systems. The suggested ideal attained remarkable organization accuracies of 99.676% and 99.538% for the respective intercropping systems, demonstrating its potential as a robust, non-invasive tool for smart, sustainable agriculture.