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From plants to pixels
Posted on Aug 01, 2025
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Thomas Terrill, Ph.D., a Fort Valley State University professor of animal science, and Aftab Siddique, Ph.D., a post-doctoral researcher, are developing an app to benefit Georgia farmers like Hunter Jones of Cochran.
Farmers are seeking cost-effective ways to improve the health of their animals and increase overall productivity.
One crop that is gaining popularity in many states is a warm-season perennial legume. Sericea lespedeza is a plant native to eastern Asia and landed in the United States in the early 20th century for erosion control. It has gained attraction among farmers with sheep and goats (small ruminants) due to its nutritional value and anthelmintic properties.
This beneficial forage resource is drought-tolerant and can grow on acidic, infertile soils where other legumes cannot thrive. It also serves as biosecurity for its bioactivity against internal parasite infection in sheep and goats. Sericea lespedeza as a natural dewormer is the primary driver for producers’ and scientists’ recent renewed interest in the plant.
Because there is a high demand for sericea lespedeza, Thomas Terrill, Ph.D., a Fort Valley State University (FVSU) professor of animal science, and Aftab Siddique, Ph.D., a post-doctoral researcher, are developing an app to benefit farmers growing this desired crop in Georgia and beyond.
“Sericea lespedeza is a summer perennial. It is a small seed, and during establishment, it doesn’t compete well with weeds. Many farmers will see a lot of weeds and think they had a planting failure. They cannot tell the difference, especially if they have never grown lespedeza before,” explained Terrill, who specializes in this crop.
He added, “Those little lespedeza plants are under there. If they leave it alone for a season, they will have a nice, thick stand the second year.”
Therefore, the FVSU duo’s research involves artificial intelligence (AI) to manage invasive plant weed species through advanced image recognition technologies. The Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute published their work, “From Plants to Pixels: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Identifying Sericea Lespedeza in Field-Based Studies,” in its Agronomy Journal at https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/14/5/.
Terrill said farmers are interested in selling sericea lespedeza as nutraceutical hay. The farmers he works with in North Georgia and South Africa are seeing the benefits. Thus, he and Siddique are developing an app to give farmers a simple way to use their cell phones to take pictures and identify if a plant is a weed or sericea lespedeza.
“It's a way to help them improve the development of this nutraceutical crop,” Terrill said.
The longtime scientist and post-doc are growing 15 different species of lespedeza in an on-campus greenhouse for their research. Siddique said the process involves AI capturing thousands of images focused on intricate features of the plant, such as various angles, sizes, colors, lightning and conditions. This process involves a model called convolutional neural network, which helps eliminate the complexity of identifying sericea lespedeza versus a weed. It has a 95% accuracy rate.
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Siddique uses a developing cell phone app to help farmers detect sericea lespedeza.
“When farmers have an app trained on that model, it becomes easier for them to get accurate results,” Siddique said. He noted they are fine-tuning the model with assistance from a research connection in India and an FVSU computer science student, Sophia Khan. They are also working with 20 different farmers in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, who they plan to share this tool once established.
This research aims to provide farmers with more access to the expertise they need, all in their hands through an app. This will subsequently save them money, time and effort.
Georgia farmer Hunter Jones of Cochran owns J1S Ranch. The Byron native purchased 65 acres in Cochran in 2021 but didn’t know what to do with it.
“I wanted to produce something to make a little money on the side. We looked into cattle but didn’t have the finances to get everything it took to manage cattle the right way,” Jones admitted.
He spoke with a friend who owns goats and decided this would be a better route. He purchased Boer goats, mostly in Georgia, and has been growing his herd ever since. He then connected with FVSU in early 2024 about growing sericea lespedeza.
“They love it,” Jones said, referring to his goats. About 8 acres of his land are dedicated to the nutraceutical crop. “In the first two weeks, they had access to it 24/7. Their coats are now shinier.”
He said the goats also appear healthier, and one black goat’s coat looks like velvet when it didn’t before. In addition, he has not had any parasite issues.
“The information I’ve gotten from Fort Valley State has been beneficial,” Jones said. “Having direct contact to Fort Valley State or access to reliable resources, they'll tell you from experience rather than you just looking it up online.”
A beginning grower of sericea lespedeza, Jones said the implementation of an app would have been helpful.
“Time is money, especially having a full-time job and trying to farm,” he said. “Knowing when to plant and how to plant it – having that information on an app from Fort Valley State or an accredited school or any research team who are in the field and putting the knowledge in an app, you can be more productive with the time you are able to spend on the farm.”
A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) 1890 Capacity Building Grant is helping Terrill and Siddique accomplish their goals to give farmers like Hunter a more accurate and quicker tool to enhance their operations. The duo also plans to develop a curriculum on this technology to benefit FVSU students.
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