Syeda Aimal Fatima Naqvi ¹ Muhammad Attique Khan ^1,2* Ameer Hamza ¹ Shrooq Alsenan ³ Meshal Alharbi ⁴ Sokea Teng ⁵ Yunyoung Nam ^5*

• ¹ HITEC University, Taxila, Punjab, Pakistan
• ² Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University, Khobar, Saudi Arabia
• ³ Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• ⁴ Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia
• ⁵ Soonchunhyang University, Asan, South Chungcheong, Republic of Korea

Fruits and vegetables are among the most nutrient-dense cash crops worldwide. Diagnosing diseases in fruits and vegetables is a key challenge in maintaining agricultural products. Due to the similarity in disease colour, texture, and shape, it is difficult to recognize manually. Also, this process is timeconsuming and requires an expert person. We proposed a novel deep learning and optimization framework for apple and cucumber leaf disease classification to consider the above challenges. In the proposed framework, a hybrid contrast enhancement technique is proposed based on the Bi-LSTM and Haze reduction to highlight the diseased part in the image. After that, two custom models named Bottleneck Residual with Self-Attention (BRwSA) and Inverted Bottleneck Residual with Self-Attention (IBRwSA) are proposed and trained on the selected datasets. After the training, testing images are employed, and deep features are extracted from the self-attention layer. Deep extracted features are fused using a concatenation approach that is further optimized in the next step using an improved human learning optimization algorithm. The purpose of this algorithm was to improve the classification accuracy and reduce the testing time. The selected features are finally classified using a shallow wide neural network (SWNN) classifier. In addition to that, both trained models are interpreted using an explainable AI technique such as LIME. Based on this approach, it is easy to interpret the inside strength of both models for apple and cucumber leaf disease classification and identification. A detailed experimental process was conducted on both datasets, Apple and Cucumber. On both datasets, the proposed framework obtained an accuracy of 94.8% and 94.9%, respectively. A comparison was also conducted using a few state-of-the-art techniques, and the proposed framework showed improved performance.