I-Corps: Commercialization of Portable Sensor for Crop Disease Detection

I-Corps：用于农作物病害检测的便携式传感器的商业化

• 批准号: 1462849
• 负责人: Ramaraja Pandia Ramasamy
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-11-01 至 2016-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1462849&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Commercialization; Portable; Sensor; Crop

Vegetative farmers who own an average size farm spend tens of thousands of dollars each year on pesticide and fungicide as preventive measure that costs about $210/acre and needs several applications through the seasons. Minimizing the pesticide usage through less frequent 'on-demand application' and/or selective application on the huge crop field could minimize unnecessary sprayings and provide huge environmental and economic benefits for vegetative farmers. Currently used methods for disease detection in agricultural crops are time consuming, destructive, demand skilled analysts, require a laboratory set-up and unfortunately do not offer either real time monitoring or on-field deployment possibilities. A rapid, real-time, non-destructive, ex-situ method for early detection of infections will help crop producers to contain the infection, prevent the spread of disease and hence avoid colossal damage. In this project, the team has developed a novel enzyme-nanomaterial composite based sensor platform for highly selective detection of diseases in crops and post-harvest produce.The fundamental science developed in this project involves the development of amperometric biosensors based on enzyme-nanomaterial composite for highly selective detection of methyl salicylate, an allelochemical released by plants and plant parts during pathogenic fungal infections. The proposed innovation will directly benefit three different customer segments in the agricultural, food processing and handling industry. At an estimated cost of a few thousand dollars, a crop producer with mid-size farm could save tens of thousands of dollars over a period of a year on unnecessary preventive sprayings. At only a few dollars per test, food quality and safety inspectors could identify spoilage and save millions of dollars in food damage.

拥有平均规模农场的植物农民每年花费数万美元用于杀虫剂和杀真菌剂作为预防措施，每英亩成本约为210美元，需要在整个季节多次应用。通过在大面积作物田上不太频繁的“按需施用”和/或选择性施用来最大限度地减少农药的使用，可以最大限度地减少不必要的喷洒，并为植物种植者提供巨大的环境和经济效益。 目前使用的农作物疾病检测方法是耗时的、破坏性的，需要熟练的分析人员，需要实验室设置，并且不幸的是，不提供真实的时间监测或现场部署的可能性。一种用于早期检测感染的快速、实时、非破坏性、非原位方法将有助于作物生产者控制感染，防止疾病传播，从而避免巨大损失。 在这个项目中，该团队开发了一种新型的基于酶-纳米材料复合物的传感器平台，用于高选择性检测农作物和收获后农产品中的疾病。该项目开发的基础科学涉及开发基于酶-纳米材料复合物的安培生物传感器，用于高选择性检测水杨酸甲酯，水杨酸甲酯是植物和植物部分在病原真菌感染时释放的化感物质。拟议的创新将直接惠及农业、食品加工和搬运行业的三个不同客户群体。一个中等规模农场的农作物生产者估计花费几千美元，一年内可以在不必要的预防性喷洒上节省数万美元。每次检测只需几美元，食品质量和安全检查员就可以识别腐败，并在食品损失中节省数百万美元。