Golden Apple Snail "Kuhol" Eggs Detection Using MATLAB Image Processing

Golden apple snail, locally known as kuhol, is a major pest of rice that contributes to crop yield loss in the Philippines. This study was conducted to develop a program that helps decrease the damage caused by the infestation of these snails. It created a standalone application that detects the golden apple snail eggs and locates the infested area from drone images. The application displays the pre-processed images, the detection results, and the coordinates of the images with detected snail eggs in latitude and longitude. Gathered data were analyzed using a confusion matrix and computing the percent accuracy and error. The developed program using MATLAB acquired an 88% accuracy in detecting the snail eggs. It was also determined that the developed program could detect golden apple snail eggs from drone images accurately up to a height of 2.5 meters from the rice fields.