The creation and use of a comprehensive cotton leaf disease dataset offer significant benefits in agricultural research, precision farming, and disease management. This dataset enables the development of accurate machine learning models for early disease detection, reducing manual inspections and facilitating timely interventions. It serves as a benchmark for testing algorithms and training deep learning models, aiding in automated monitoring and decision support tools in precision agriculture. This leads to targeted interventions, reduced chemical use, and improved crop management. Global collaboration is fostered, contributing to the development of disease-resistant cotton varieties and effective management strategies, ultimately reducing economic losses and promoting sustainable farming. Field surveys conducted from October 2023 to January 2024 ensured meticulous image capture under diverse conditions. The images are categorized into eight classes, representing specific disease manifestations, pests, or environmental stress in cotton plants. The dataset comprises 2137 original images and 7000 augmented images, enhancing deep learning model training. The Inception V3 model demonstrated high performance, with an overall accuracy of 96.03 %. This underscores the dataset's potential in advancing automated disease detection in cotton agriculture. © 2024 The Author(s)