ELIAS HORÁCIO ZAVALA

Ms. ELIAS HORÁCIO ZAVALA

Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

1Year (2026-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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2 October 2026 in Plants
Verified
Journal Article
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EZELIAS HORÁCIO ZAVALA
ELIAS HORÁCIO ZAVALA
Gabriel Araujo e Silva FerrazGabriel Araujo e Silva Ferraz
Gabriel Araujo e Silva Ferraz
FVFelipe Andrés Obando Vega
Felipe Andrés Obando Vega
MOMirian Oliveira
Mirian Oliveira
MCMilene Alves de Figueiredo Carvalho
Milene Alves de Figueiredo Carvalho
Daniele SarriDaniele Sarri
Daniele Sarri
Early yield estimation is important for improving decision-making and management practices in coffee production systems. However, approaches that use aerial imagery to characterize flowering and relate it to subsequent yield remain limited. This study evaluated the potential of RGB imagery acquired by remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) combined with Deep Learning techniques to classify coffee plants according to three levels of a flowering proxy and to investigate its relationship with yield. A dataset comprising 1593 segmented RGB images was classified into Low, Medium, and High flowering levels using a custom convolutional neural network and three transfer learning architectures: VGG16, ResNet50V2, and MobileNetV2. ResNet50V2 was selected for final evaluation based on its validation performance and achieved 92.12% accuracy, 92.40% macro-precision, 91.81% macro-recall, and 92.06% macro-F1 on the test dataset. The flowering proxy showed a positive association with field-observed yield, with Spearman’s ρ = 0.701 (p < 0.001) and R2 = 0.528 for the combined dataset of Arara and Mundo Novo. In consolidated out-of-sample predictions, the model achieved R2 = 0.489, MAE = 1.03 kg plant−1, and RMSE = 1.18 kg plant−1. Performance differed between cultivars, with consolidated R2 values of 0.567 for Arara and 0.329 for Mundo Novo. Spatial analysis also showed correspondence between the distribution of flowering levels derived from RGB imagery and the subsequent spatial distribution of yield. These findings indicate that RPA-based RGB imagery and Deep Learning can provide spatialized information related to coffee flowering and its productive performance, with potential applications in precision agriculture. Further evaluation across production cycles, cultivars, and environmental conditions is needed to assess the robustness and generalization of the approach.