SGSNet: a lightweight deep learning model for strawberry growth stage detection

Introduction Detecting strawberry growth stages is crucial for optimizing production management. Precise monitoring enables farmers to adjust management strategies based on the specific growth needs of strawberries, thereby improving yield and quality. However, dense planting patterns and complex environments within greenhouses present challenges for accurately detecting growth stages. Traditional methods that rely on large-scale equipment are impractical in confined spaces. Thus, the development of lightweight detection technologies suitable for portable devices has become essential. Methods This paper presents SGSNet, a lightweight deep learning model designed for the fast and accurate detection of various strawberry growth stages. A comprehensive dataset covering the entire strawberry growth cycle is constructed to serve as the foundation for model training and testing. An innovative lightweight convolutional neural network, named GrowthNet, is designed as the backbone of SGSNet, facilitating efficient feature extraction while significantly reducing model parameters and computational complexity. The DySample adaptive upsampling structure is employed to dynamically adjust sampling point locations, thereby enhancing the detection capability for objects at different scales. The RepNCSPELAN4 module is optimized with the iRMB lightweight attention mechanism to achieve efficient multi-scale feature fusion, significantly improving the accuracy of detecting small targets from long-distance images. Finally, the Inner-IoU optimization loss function is applied to accelerate model convergence and enhance detection accuracy. Results Testing results indicate that SGSNet performs exceptionally well across key metrics, achieving 98.83% precision, 99.45% recall, 99.14% F1 score, 99.50% mAP@0.5, and a loss value of 0.3534. It surpasses popular models such as Faster R-CNN, YOLOv10, and RT-DETR. Furthermore, SGSNet has a computational cost of only 14.7 GFLOPs and a parameter count as low as 5.86 million, demonstrating an effective balance between high performance and resource efficiency. Discussion Lightweight deep learning model SGSNet not only exceeds the mainstream model in detection accuracy, but also greatly reduces the need for computing resources and is suitable for portable devices. In the future, the model can be extended to detect the growth stage of other crops, further advancing smart agricultural management.