Soil, a non-renewable resource, requires continuous monitoring to prevent degradation and support sustainable agriculture. Visible-near-infrared (Vis-NIR) spectroscopy is a rapid and cost-effective method for predicting soil properties. While traditional machine learning methods are commonly used for modeling Vis-NIR spectral data, large datasets may benefit more from advanced deep learning techniques. In this study, based on the large soil spectral library LUCAS, we aimed to enhance regression model performance in soil property estimation by combining Transformer and convolutional neural network (CNN) techniques to predict 11 soil properties (clay, silt, pH in CaCl₂, pH in H₂O, CEC, OC, CaCO₃, N, P, and K). The Transformer-CNN model accurately predicted most soil properties, outperforming other methods (partial least squares regression (PLSR), random forest regression (RFR), support vector machine regression (SVR), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), ResNet18) with a 10–24 percentage point improvement in the coefficient of determination (R²). The Transformer-CNN model excelled in predicting pH in CaCl₂, pH in H₂O, OC, CaCO₃, and N (R² = 0.94–0.96, RPD > 3) and performed well for clay, sand, CEC, P, and K (R² = 0.77–0.85, 2 < RPD < 3). This study demonstrates the potential of Transformer-CNN in enhancing soil property prediction, although future work should aim to optimize computational efficiency and explore a wider range of applications to ensure its utility in different agricultural settings.

Rice is one of the most important food crops in China and around the world. However, with the continuous transformation of human activities, the quality of climate, soil, and water sources has also changed, and disease affecting rice has become increasingly serious. Traditional artificial pest identification methods have been unable to adapt to the occurrence of a large number of diseases, and artificial naked eye identification also increases the uncertainty of the identification results, and cannot “suit the remedy to the case”, which will not cure the disease, or even achieve half the result with half the effort. In the incidence range of rice diseases, rice blast, rice false smut, and bacterial blight have the highest incidence rate, the greatest harm, and are the most representative. Therefore, this paper mainly focuses on the above three categories. In this paper, the identification of rice diseases is further studied. First, sample pictures of rice blast, rice false smut, and bacterial leaf blight diseases are collected. Due to the differences in the distance and light of the sample photos, their size and angle is biased. Therefore, some means are needed to unify the specifications of these images, so as to improve the efficiency of network model recognition. Neural network recognition needs to absorb many sample images to classify and learn features. The main research objects of this paper are rice blast, rice false smut, and bacterial wilt. Therefore, this paper also expands the data set for this kind of disease, and unifies the specifications through size cutting, angle change, and vertical symmetrical mirror image processing. Then, we built a new network model based on deep learning to realize the parameter initialization design. The accuracy of the rice disease identification model built at the beginning does not satisfy the practical requirements. In order to upgrade the model in depth, this experiment increases the entry point of analysis and research, and integrates four parameters: iteration times, batch size, learning rate, and optimization algorithm in order to strive for the optimization of the experimental results. In this study, the confusion matrix is selected as the evaluation standard, and experimental results with more objectivity and reference value are obtained through the horizontal comparison of visual graphics generator (VGG) and residual network (ResNet), two highly referential network models. The results show that the recognition accuracy of the optimized model is 98.64%, which achieves the goal of accurately identifying diseases.

In the context of blueberry orchard management and automated harvesting, this study introduces an improved YOLOv8 model, ADE-YOLO, designed for precise blueberry ripeness detection, enhancing automated picking efficiency. Built on the YOLOv8n architecture, ADE-YOLO features a dimensionality-reducing convolution at the backbone’s end, reducing computational complexity while optimizing input features. This improvement enhances the effectiveness of the AIFI module, particularly in multi-scale feature fusion, boosting detection accuracy and robustness. Additionally, the neck integrates a dynamic sampling technique, replacing traditional upsampling methods, allowing for more precise feature integration during feature transfer from P5 to P4 and P4 to P3. To further enhance computational efficiency, CIOU is replaced with EIOU, simplifying the aspect ratio penalty term while maintaining high accuracy in bounding box overlap and centroid distance calculations. Experimental results demonstrate ADE-YOLO’s strong performance in blueberry ripeness detection, achieving a precision of 96.49%, recall of 95.38%, and mAP scores of 97.56% (mAP50) and 79.25% (mAP50-95). The model is lightweight, with just 2.95 M parameters and a 6.2 MB weight file, outpacing YOLOv8n in these areas. ADE-YOLO’s design and performance underscore its significant application potential in blueberry orchard management, providing valuable support for precision agriculture.

Insulators play a pivotal role in power grid infrastructure, offering indispensable electrical insulation and mechanical support. Precise and efficient detection of insulator faults is of paramount importance for safeguarding grid reliability and ensuring operational safety. With the rapid advancements in UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) technology and deep learning, there has been a notable transition from traditional manual inspections to automated UAV-based detection systems. To further enhance detection accuracy, this study conducts a series of systematic improvements to the YOLOv5s model and proposes an advanced intelligent insulator detection model, namely YOLOv5s-TC. Firstly, this new model replaces the C3 (Cross Stage Partial Bottleneck with 3 convolutions) module with Bottleneck Transformers to enhance feature learning ability. Secondly, the CBAM (Convolutional Block Attention Module) is introduced to make the model focus more on the key features of the images, thus improving the target localization ability. Finally, the improved loss function named OSIoU is adopted to further enhance detection accuracy. Comparative experiments demonstrate that YOLOv5s-TC achieves significant performance gains, with mean average precision improvements of 4.4%, 24.5%, and 13.9% over the original YOLOv5s, Faster R-CNN, and SSD models, respectively. The results indicate that YOLOv5s-TC offers superior detection performance and greater reliability for practical power grid inspection applications.