AI to help Omani famers in Detecting Palm Trees Diseases

Vision Palm: A multi-functional system to help palm farmers

Muscat: The Vision Palm project is a smart system to help farmers detect palm trees diseases and measure the quality of their crops with the aim of enhancing environmental and economic sustainability in the Sultanate of Oman. It is one of the winning projects in the Upgrade Programme /Technology Track/ supervised by the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation.

Yusra bint Rashid Al Farsi, from the Vision Palm project team, said that the project, which uses artificial intelligence technologies for early detection of palm trees diseases and determining the quality of dates, and to enhance the agricultural sector in the Sultanate of Oman, aims to empower farmers and improve the efficiency of agricultural production, in line with the national strategy to promote palm cultivation and achieve sustainable economic growth.

She added that the project provides an application supported by an artificial intelligence model that can detect palm leaf diseases early and determine the quality of dates, which contributes to facilitating the quality assessment process and increasing the effectiveness of Omani date exports, as the system works by entering an image of the affected part of the palm where it is scanned by artificial intelligence and then the result appears.

Al Farsi explained that early detection of palm diseases is one of the most important factors in reducing risks and maintaining the health of palm trees, as the system based on artificial intelligence can provide greater opportunities for exporting high-quality dates, which will positively reflect on the national economy by increasing revenues and improving the image of the Omani product in global markets.

She stated that palm farmers face several challenges, most notably the difficulty of detecting diseases in their early stages, which leads to tree damage and reduced crop quality. The new system provides a solution to this problem by enabling farmers to detect diseases automatically, which allows for immediate intervention and improved palm health management.

The system will also facilitate determining the quality of dates from the inside and outside using artificial intelligence and computer vision technologies. In addition, the new system will allow farmers to benefit from its technologies through training and workshops organized by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources. The application will be easy to use and available on mobile phones, enabling everyone to benefit from it easily.

It is worth noting that the system works to protect palm groves from the spread of diseases, which preserves the environment and contributes to increasing production. This ensures economic stability by supporting local and international exports of dates and enhances the sustainability of the agricultural sector and regional cooperation in the field of smart agriculture. With this system, the Sultanate of Oman is taking an advanced step towards achieving agricultural and economic sustainability through technological innovation.