Smart Monitoring System for Optimization of Tea Plantation

Sri Lanka is a global hub for tea production worldwide, and the tea industry has enormous economic and cultural significance to the country. However, the tea industry, though, is confronted with numerous challenges, including unpredictable weather conditions, improper fertilizer application, pest and disease outbreaks, and suboptimal cultivation practices. These challenges are leading to lower yield and more losses. With the increasing unpredictability of weather patterns, it is challenging to determine the precise fertilizer application schedule and dosage. In terms of pest and diseases, effect of the Shot-hole borer, Tea Blister Blight and Stem and Branch Canker are more destructive to the tea plant. Therefore, accurate weather prediction and the early detection of those infections are crucial tasks in tea cultivation. This study presents a smart monitoring system for Sri Lankan tea crop that combines IoT, image processing, audio processing, and DL technologies to address such problems. The Smart Monitoring System gives growers a full toolkit by providing real-time weather insights, fertilizer delivery depending on weather conditions, early insect detection, disease identification, and damage quantification. According to performance evaluations, the proposed method's accuracy results for weather prediction, fertilizer application and identifications of disease, pest, deficiency, and degree of diseased conditions are in the range of 80-100%.