A benchmark dataset of Primitive Indian Paddy Panicle Images and identification via deep residual transfer learning.

We introduce ``Primitive Indian Paddy Panicle Images,'' a benchmark image dataset of 22 primitive Indian rice panicle varieties (Sethy, Prabira; Pamerelli, Ranjith, 2026; Mendeley Data, V1, doi:10.17632/khfd7pzskd.1) and present an identification approach based on deep residual transfer learning. Using a transfer-learned ResNet-50 with image augmentation and an 80/10/10 train/validation/test split, the model attains 100.0% validation accuracy and 98.74% accuracy on the held-out test set. Per-class one-vs-rest AUCs on validation are 1.000 for all 22 classes; test AUCs range from 0.9924 to 1.000 (mean ≈ 0.999), with separate confusion matrices and ROC curves provided for validation and test partitions. These results demonstrate that deep residual transfer learning can robustly discriminate closely related panicle morphotypes when trained on a carefully curated dataset. We release the dataset to support reproducible research in germplasm identification, varietal purity assessment, and automated phenotyping.