BACKGROUNDClimate significantly influences the interaction between pathogens and their hosts, and this is particularly evident in the coffee industry, where fungal diseases like Cercospora coffeicola, causing brown eye spot, can drastically reduce yields. Our study focuses on forecasting coffee brown eye spot using various models that incorporate agrometeorological data, allowing for predictions at least one week prior to disease occurrence. Data was gathered from eight locations across São Paulo and Minas Gerais, encompassing the South and Cerrado regions of Minas Gerais State. In the initial phase, various machine learning (ML) models and topologies were calibrated to forecast brown eye spot, identifying one with potential for advanced decision‐making. The top‐performing models were then employed in the next stage to forecast and spatially project the severity of brown eye spot across 2,681 key Brazilian coffee‐producing municipalities. Meteorological data were sourced from NASA's POWER platform, and the Penman‐Monteith method was used to estimate reference evapotranspiration, leading to a Thornthwaite and Mather (1955) water balance calculation. Six ML models — K‐Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Artificial Neural Network Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forests (RF), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Gradient Boosting Regression (GradBOOSTING) — were employed, considering a 7‐day disease latency to define input variables.RESULTSThese models utilized climatic elements such as average air temperature, relative humidity, leaf wetness duration, rainfall, evapotranspiration, water deficit, and surplus. The XGBoost model proved most effective in high‐yielding conditions, demonstrating high precision and accuracy. Conversely, the SVM model excelled in low‐yielding scenarios. The incidence of brown eye spot varied noticeably between high and low‐yield conditions, with significant regional differences observed. The accuracy of predicting brown eye spot severity in coffee plantations depended on the biennial production cycle. High‐yielding trees showed superior results with the XGBoost model (R2 = 0.77, RMSE = 10.53), while under low‐yielding conditions, the Support Vector Machine (SVM) model performed better (precision 0.76, RMSE = 12.82).CONCLUSIONThe study's application of agrometeorological variables and ML models successfully predicted the incidence of brown eye spot in coffee plantations with a seven‐day lead time, illustrating a valuable tool for managing this significant agricultural challenge.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.