(Photo by Billy Schuerman, UGA)
University of Georgia Professor Liang Dong is developing sensor technologies designed to detect drought, disease and insect pressure before signs of plant stress are visible. The goal is to help farmers make faster, more informed management decisions. Dong is the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) eminent scholar in precision agriculture and also serves as associate director for research at the Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture.
The GRA is a nonprofit, public-private partnership that invests in recruiting researchers to Georgia’s universities. It enhances labs and provides seed funding and guidance to help university researchers move promising discoveries to the marketplace.
Dong’s research focuses on the development of novel sensor technologies for real-time monitoring of soil conditions, plant health and environmental factors. He and his team are designing sensors around the plant to measure the signals it produces.
“Instead of waiting until we can see that something is wrong, the sensor lets the plant tell us what it is experiencing,” Dong said. “In a sense, we are giving plants a voice.”
The sensors Dong has developed can detect a variety of signals, including reactive oxygen species, phytohormones and volatiles. They form an interconnected signaling network that regulates plant growth, development and responses to environmental stress.
“Our sensors can also detect nutrient levels, transpiration and photosynthetic activity,” Dong said. “These signals can give us an earlier picture of what is happening inside the plant, which could be especially important for precision agriculture and crop biosecurity.”
Dong has spent countless hours listening to Georgia farmers, crop researchers and UGA Cooperative Extension specialists. From these conversations, he has identified grower priorities including crop biosecurity and drought-related water management. Georgia’s drought-prone, hot and humid climate makes addressing these issues a challenge.
“We want to know whether sensors can detect how a plant is responding to these threats before we can see visible symptoms,” Dong said. “If we can do that, sensors could provide an early warning and help growers respond much faster. More data can help growers make more precise irrigation decisions and use water more efficiently.”
Looking to the future, Dong sees sensing systems that continually tell stakeholders what is happening within agricultural systems and turning that data into practical recommendations. That could mean earlier detection of crop diseases and insects as well as better drought and irrigation management.
The ultimate measure of success is whether the technology helps producers make better decisions, improve productivity, and use water, fertilizer, pesticides and other resources more efficiently.
Source: UGA
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