10 Best Free Plant Disease Identification Apps to Install in 2023

Last Updated on 4 months by Namrata

I enjoy gardening at home and find great joy in watching my plants grow beautifully. However, it saddens me to see a plant that is struggling or dying. As an amateur gardener, identifying plant diseases can be challenging. It would be helpful to have a mobile app that provides easy-to-follow instructions for detecting plant diseases quickly, instead of having to sift through a book with an overwhelming number of options. Such an app would be incredibly useful.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become useful in many sectors like medicine and agriculture. AI has become so advanced that it can detect diseases just from a picture of the infected plant. This new era of AI has revolutionized plant disease identification apps.

AI operates using data, and as it is provided with more data, its capabilities become stronger. Over time, AI will continually improve and excel in its tasks.

You have the option to download several apps from both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store onto your mobile device in order to detect and diagnose any plant diseases that may occur in your home.

Best Free Plant Disease Identification Apps

1. Agrio

Agrio is an AI-based plant sickness identification app. The app uses images uploaded by users to match with data available in the app’s database and then provides accurate details of the plant disease treatment.

Agrio has revolutionized crop monitoring technology by providing alters on users’ phones using remote image sensing when any changes are seen in the crop field.

This app also helps farmers and crop inspectors record crop data on the go.

2. CropsAI

An amazing app to monitor crop health. This app currently supports only a few crops and they are planning to include more crops in the future.

Using your mobile phone camera, click pictures of the infested crop and upload them to CropsAI. With the help of AI, the app will give you the best advice to treat plant diseases.

Currently free to use and you can contribute to the improvement of the app.

Not available to download(as of Feb 2022)

3. Plants Disease Identification

Plants Disease Identification is an easy-to-use app. Just upload pictures of a leaf infested and the AI system of the app will detect the disease.

Currently supports a few crops, these are Apple, Blueberry, Cherry, Corn, Grape, Orange, Peach, Pepper, Potato, Raspberry, Soybean, Squash, Strawberry, and Tomato.

After the disease identification, you can contact your local agricultural expert for help.

4. Plantix

This app is awesome. You just need to take a picture of the plant that is affected and upload it to the app. And Boom! The app will automatically identify the disease and give you all the details about the disease and its cure (biologically and chemically).

Plantix is now available in 18 regional languages of India. You can ask questions in the farmer community of the app in your own language and get answers quickly.

This app can guide you to plant a new crop through its pieces of information like when to plant, the best soil, when to water, etc. And also can help to calculate the amount of fertilizers to add to the soil. Overall a handy app for farmers.

Not available for iPhone.

5. Leaf Doctor

The main aim of this app is to find the health of the leaves of diseased plants. You can use this app to make sure your garden plants are healthy and disease-free. You can access the severity of the disease on leaves using leaf doctor.

6. Crop Doctor

Crop Doctor is built by the government of India to help farmers grow crops well. This app provides information about certain crops grown in this region. Also, gives information about any new govt. schemes for the farmers. The app supports both Hindi and English.

7. Purdue Tree Doctor

Developed by experts at Purdue University, this plant doctor app does not work like magic just by uploading a picture. There is no AI feature in the app. However, the Purdue Tree Doctor app’s database has more than 1000 high-resolution photos of different plant diseases.

These high-resolution photos of plant diseases can help to identify the disease when you match it with the diseased plants. You can get help from Purdue University experts to manage the problem.

8. Plant Scope

An advanced app for farmers. This app uses a drone camera to find diseases in plants. This also reduces the burden of spending money on crop inspectors to keep looking at the plants.

The drone camera clicks photos of the crops and sends the data to the farmer’s mobile and to the app database. Using deep neural networks of the app dataset finds plant diseases and provides the best solutions.

The app marks any disease found in a particular location to alert farmers of the nearby area. Overall a cool app and new intervention are needed.

MORE POSTS: How to Get Rid of Bugs on Houseplants: Home Remedies

Best Plant Pest Identification Apps

All the apps we mentioned to some extent inform about pests. But, they are not specially made for pest control. So, we are covering the garden pest identification app separately.

1. Pacific Pests & Pathogens

This app works by asking questions to the farmer about the crop infested with pests. After a series of questions narrowed down until the perfect match is found. And then you can compare the photos given in the app with the infested crop.

How does it help? The app gives a sheet about the damage, biology and life cycle, and management.

Pacific Pests & Pathogens app is supported by ACIAR, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.

2. Plant diseases and pests

This app needs more data to give accurate results as it uses AI to identify diseases and pests in plants. They update their database every year with new pictures to enhance the AI to detect better any pests.

Taking a load of pictures of infested plants can help give a better result when you use this app.

How can a plant disease identification app help you?

An application designed to identify plant diseases can assist in determining the specific disease and its underlying causes. Once the disease is identified, the appropriate treatment can be administered. Simply use the camera on your phone to capture images of the affected parts of the plant, such as leaves, branches, and stems. These pictures can then be uploaded onto the application. The app’s artificial intelligence systems will assist in diagnosing the specific disease.

MORE POSTS: 11 Plant Care Apps to Keep Track of Your Houseplants

Some Common Diseases Of Houseplants That These Plant Disease Identification Apps Can Help You To Identify

Alternaria leaf blight: A group of fungal diseases found in garden plants like cabbage, and melon.

Angular Leaf Spot: Disease caused by bacteria found mostly in cucurbit crops.
Anthracnose: It is caused by fungi during the spring season when it is cool and wet.
Bacterial Blight: Found worldwide, this disease is caused by bacteria living in the plant debris, canker, and soil. So, avoid overhead watering to keep leaves dry.

Bacterial Blight: Caused by bacteria mostly in prunus like cherries, and plums. This makes sunken patches of dead bark and small holes in leaves.
Black rot: Fungi that grow in hot and humid weather cause blackish discoloration and decay.
Downy Mildew: It is caused by fungus in a wet climate, yellow or brown mottling or spots on the leaves can be seen. The disease can be spread by air through spores.

Early Blight: Seen in old leaves of tomato and potato plants throughout the US. Fungus Alternaria solani creates small brown spots with concentric rings on leaves.
Gray Mold: Fungus Botrytis cinerea infects the flowering plants, fruits, and vegetables and kills the plants.
Late Blight: This is a very devastating disease for tomatoes and potatoes. Late blight can rot leaves, stems, and fruits, which causes total crop failure.

Powdery Mildew: A fungal growth on garden plants like pumpkin, squash, beans, and cucumbers. This fungus loves a warm, humid climate. At first, the yellowing of leaves starts and then dries up.
Pythium: A fungus-like organism that colonizes a plant by producing hyphae which are threadlike, filamentous cells that extract nutrients from the host plant.
Root Rot: It is caused when excess water is not drained out from the garden and this gives shelter for the fungus to grow. If left untreated root will rot and eventually kill the plant.

Rust: Fungal disease causes rust at the lower surface of the leaves of beans, and tomatoes.
Powdery mildew: Caused by white fungi, it produces powdery white spots on the foliage of plants. These white powders may get transferred from one to another plant by air.

MORE POSTS: 10 Best Watering Tracker Apps

How to identify diseases in houseplants without an App

Houseplants grown in pots/containers need to be looked after every week or once in a few weeks. Bugs can infest indoor plants, you can treat houseplants with a home remedy.

Some of the most common insects found on indoor plants include brown scales, mealybugs, aphids, whiteflies, red spider mites, fungi, gnats, and thrips. If you want to learn more about these pests and how to eliminate them, you can check out a YouTube video by Amanda, available on the channel “PLANTERINA”.

Fungi such as fungus mycelia can infect and harm houseplants, leading to issues like Crown and Stem Rot, Grey molds, Powdery mildew, and White mold. To safeguard your houseplants against these fungi, you may find it helpful to view the captivating YouTube video titled “Fungus on Houseplants” created by Wandering Whittles.

The neem oil mentioned in this video is available on Amazon, you can check the price here.

Bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and other microbes can also cause diseases in houseplants.

Nutrient deficiency, nutrient toxicity, and water toxicity should also be considered when accessing plant diseases. To advocate these look for symptoms like stunted growth, death of plant tissue, or yellowing of the leaves caused by a reduced production of chlorophyll.

After you identify the disease, take appropriate steps to save the plant from dying.

Conclusion

Identifying the reason behind the unhealthy appearance of plants is a straightforward task that does not require specialized knowledge. Simply take a close look at the plants, whether they are located indoors or outdoors in your home. By carefully observing the leaves, you can typically determine the cause of most plant diseases. It is also recommended to inspect the soil for any signs of pest infestation. You can also take the help of a free plant disease identification app to find out the cause. Additionally, you can read how I Kill pests with organic pesticides prepared at home.