A survey of deep learning-based object detection methods in crop counting

Crop counting is a crucial step in crop yield estimation. By counting, crop growth status can be accurately detected and adjusted, improving crop yield and quality. In recent years, with the rapid development of convolutional neural networks, deep learning-based object detection methods have been widely used in crop counting. By summarizing the research related to crop counting, this paper reviews the development status of object detection and crop counting. It then compares deep learning-based object detection counting methods with other counting methods. The paper also introduces public datasets and evaluation metrics commonly used for algorithmic models and provides a more in-depth analysis of the application of object detection in crop counting. Finally, the current problems that need to be solved, such as the lack of datasets, difficulties in small object counting, occlusion in complex environments, and some future directions are summarized. We hope this review will encourage more researchers to use deep-learning object detection methods in agriculture.