The capstone project research teams from the Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (BSCS) and Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (BSIT) of Saint Louis University (SLU) visited the coffee farm of Mr. Eli Natividad of Farm to Cup Benguet, an extension partner of the Benguet Coffee Project, to collect images of the different coffee varieties such as Robusta, Liberica, and Excelsa at Dueg, San Clemente, Tarlac on 16 October 2023.
The data collection was part of a research study for the Benguet Coffee Project that aims to create a machine learning model that will facilitate the identification of coffee plant varieties and nutrient deficiency. This research will contribute to the realization of coffee profiling in the Philippines, which is one of the pioneering activities in the coffee industry. The newly collected data will be used to augment the existing data set contained in Benguet since only one (1) variety of the coffee plant is found, which is Arabica.
The BSCS team’s research aims to determine the nutrient deficiency of the coffee plant based on the coffee leaves and classify harvested and roasted coffee beans into different varieties. The BSIT team, on the other hand, is focused on developing an AI-driven Android mobile application to map the coffee farms in Benguet and classify the coffee plants into different varieties.
Through the data gathering activity, BSCS and BSIT researchers realized that research is not just about writing papers and building proof concepts through computer programming. The research process also involves data-gathering activities that require the researchers to visit the actual data sources and not depend on secondary data.
