Our round-up of the latest research from institutions and universities across the globe looks at a new app to improve olive oil industry efficiency, while potato experts in the US will investigate how to control pests without using controversial neonicotinoids. Scroll through the gallery for more…
Image: Getty/Martin Barraud
Our round-up of the latest research from institutions and universities across the globe looks at a new app to improve olive oil industry efficiency, while potato experts in the US will investigate how to control pests without using controversial neonicotinoids. Scroll through the gallery for more…
Image: Getty/Martin Barraud
Researchers at the University of Cordoba in Spain have developed an app capable of identifying olive varieties using photos of olive pits.
This knowledge can help optimise cultivation practices and ensures the production of high-quality olives. The AI tool can also help olive oil producers ensure the authenticity and quality of their products. By verifying the olive variety used, they can provide accurate information to consumers and maintain their brand reputation.The tool's development was possible thanks to the cataloguing and documentation work of five germplasm banks in different countries and to advances in Artificial Intelligence systems.
The initiative, which is part of the GEN4OLIVE European project to improve olive trees, involved the participation of olive germplasm banks from Morocco, Greece, Italy, and Turkey to gather more than 150,000 photos of 133 olive varieties from the Mediterranean basin. The Computer Science Department at Rome's Sapienza University was in charge of collecting the information and creating the algorithm for this tool, which proposes a new approach to identify varieties and automates the traditional morphological classification process.
Researchers Hristofor Miho and Concepción Muñoz Díez stressed the accuracy demonstrated by the model, with around 90% efficiency. "It's a system of learning through trial and error, based on 'Machine Learning,' in which we train the machine to learn through its own failures," they said. The researchers explained that the more images forming the database, the more effective the system will be. The entities participating in the project have agreed on very strict protocols to unify their working methodologies and generate images allowing for optimization of the algorithm.
The result is an Artificial Intelligence tool that has been shown to be capable of detecting morphological details that escape even the human eye. After processing the data, it returns a list of the possible varieties with different degrees of compatibility with the photographed sample. This Machine Learning system will be the basis of an application that will allow growers and nurseries to easily and quickly identify the variety of olive tree they are working with. According to Ucolivo, by making it available to the entire sector as a public and free tool, it will also serve to advance general knowledge of all existing olive varieties.
Image: Getty/piola666
Poison ivy ranks among the most medically problematic plants. To find poison ivy before it finds you, University of Florida scientists published a new study in which they use artificial intelligence to confirm that an app can identify poison ivy.
Nathan Boyd, a professor of horticultural sciences at the UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center near Tampa, led the research. “We were the first to do this, and it was designed as a tool for hikers or others working outdoors,” Boyd said. “The app uses a camera to identify in real-time if poison ivy is present and provides you with a measure of certainty for the detection. It also functions even if you don’t have connectivity to the internet.”
For the study, researchers collected thousands of images of poison ivy from five locations. They labeled images, and in each image, scientists put boxes around the leaves and stems of the plant. The boxed images were critical because poison ivy has a unique leaf arrangement and shape. Scientists use those characteristics to identify the plant.
They then ran the images through AI programs and taught a computer to recognize which plants are poison ivy. They also included images of plants that are not poison ivy or plants that look like poison ivy to be certain the computer learns to distinguish them.
“We believe that by integrating an object-detection algorithm, public health and plant science, our research can encourage and support further investigations to understand poison ivy distribution and minimize health concerns,” Boyd said. The next step is to make the app commercially available. The UF/IFAS researchers hope to expand the use of the app to identify more noxious plants.
Image: Getty/HABesen
Thanks to its high nutrition and cool-weather hardiness, the faba bean poses great agricultural promise for feeding a changing world, according to scientists at Virginia Tech in the US. The bright-green legume has been enjoyed as a diet staple for thousands of years in Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean. Just one cup of faba beans has 13 grams of protein — making it a better protein source than most other legumes — along with plenty of fiber, potassium, and iron. Plus, it’s a good cover crop that helps improve soil health, slow erosion, and control pests, disease, and weeds.
But you don’t often see it in the fields or on the menus in Virginia. That’s why researcher Maria Balota is piloting a US$2.7 million multistate project funded by the US Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture Specialty Crops Research Initiative to introduce the faba bean as a sustainable fall and winter crop in the mid-Atlantic region.
“Growing resilient crops to climate change is one way to achieve agricultural sustainability in an evolving environment,” Balota said. “We can improve traditional plant varieties’ tolerance of more extreme temperatures and rainfall through breeding. But in addition to this strategy, we can scavenge for crops that fit this new environment naturally. Faba beans are a cool-season legume that fit well into the winter production systems of the mid-Atlantic.”
Federal and state incentive programs reward the planting of cover crops as a climate-smart practice that reduces erosion and runoff, improves soil health, and supports bees and other pollinators. Virginia farmers grow over 430,000 acres of cover crops, predominantly as a means of enhancing soil nutrients before planting cash crops in the spring.
The researchers hope that the faba bean will prove to be a sustainable cover crop and cash crop that brings nutritional, environmental, and economic benefits to the region.
Image: Getty/PavloBaliukh
Farmers in sub-Saharan Africa need to diversify away from growing maize and switch to crops that are resilient to climate change and supply enough key micronutrients for the population, according to a major research study.
Maize is a staple crop across the region where it is grown and consumed in vast quantities. But diversification towards fruits, vegetables and crops such as cassava, millet and sorghum will improve nutrition security in the country, meaning sufficient micronutrients essential for good health.
The study also says the quantity of food produced must increase - and unless yields are boosted to an unprecedented level, more land will have to be brought into agricultural production.
Professor Jennie Macdiarmid, from the Rowett Institute at the University of Aberdeen and one of the authors of the paper, said: “The study has highlighted the need to place nutrition at the heart of agricultural policy to avoid the long-term unintended consequence of failing to produce food that can deliver the nutritional needs of the population.
“If policy solutions focus only on increasing production of calories and adapting to be climate smart, it is likely there will be negative consequences for health through nutritionally poor diets.”
More than 50 researchers contributed to the investigation, which involved talking to policymakers and other stakeholders in the food and agriculture sectors in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa: Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
“Too often food, agriculture and nutrition policies sit in siloes across different government departments,” said Dr Jennings, a Research Fellow in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds.
“This study provides holistic evidence that combines information on environmental impacts of food system changes and the changes needed for population level nutrition security. The research shows that action can be taken to adapt to climate change and improve nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Dr Ndashe Kapulu, from the Zambia Agriculture Research Institute and contributing author to the study has been involved in studies to assess how soybean could improve the income of commercial and small-scale farmers. He said: "Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa will be better able to handle climate change and other stresses if they have more diverse food systems, such as the transition to soybean production in Zambia.
“As scientists, we need to generate enough evidence in our research to help make changes that support and guide actions to make the agrifood system more resilient.”
Image: Getty/ Nikada
In what they claim is a significant development for personalised nutrition, researchers in Italy have cultivated microgreens with bespoke nutritional profiles to serve individual dietary requirements.
The study, published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, provides a blueprint for the soilless cultivation of nutritionally enriched plants in a commercial greenhouse setting.
“Interest in personalised nutrition is on the rise. Soilless biofortification of vegetables has opened the door to the potential for adapting vegetable production to specific dietary requirements,” said Massimiliano Renna, professor of agricultural and environmental science at the University of Bari Aldo Moro.
The team cultivated four different species – radish, pea, rocket and Swiss chard – and focused on two nutrients that play a crucial role in health and nutrition: iodine and potassium.
Using tailored nutrient solutions for plant growth, the team successfully cultivated plants with iodine content up to 14 times higher than unfortified microgreens, as a novel dietary source of iodine.
They also grew microgreens with a 45% reduction in potassium levels, to cater for chronic kidney disease sufferers – for whom its intake must be restricted to avoid health complications.
“Since vegetables contain high concentrations of potassium, patients with impaired kidney function are sometimes advised not to eat vegetables, or that they should be soaked in water and boiled to reduce the potassium content through leaching.
“However, the reduction in potassium using such cooking methods can be considered limited, while other important minerals and vitamins could be significantly lost,’ the researchers noted. ‘In this context, the production of vegetables with low potassium content could be of great interest.”
The study was conducted in a commercial setting at a working microgreen farm in southern Italy. Crucially, this supports the viability of cultivating customised microgreens on a large scale while maintaining optimal agronomic performance.
The microgreens were grown in a soilless system, where a liquid medium is used in place of soil and the plants are fed through a nutrient solution.
Explaining the advantages of a soilless system, the authors said, “Soilless cultivation is considered an advanced, environmentally friendly agricultural practice for enhancing the quality of fresh vegetables. In fact, although soilless cultivation systems have been developed primarily to address the challenge of excessive soil pathogens, it is nonetheless true that they also favour optimal control of plant growth, high productivity, and an efficient use of water and fertilisers. Furthermore, soilless systems represent an opportunity to modulate the nutrient solution precisely and efficaciously.”
The researchers are now turning their attention to manipulating the biological pathways of plants to produce desired compounds. ‘The key idea is to leverage in-depth knowledge of plant metabolic pathways to identify key points where intervention is possible to increase the production of desired molecules,” they noted.
“The optimisation of these techniques will require in-depth research into the molecular biology of plants, including the metabolic pathways involved in the synthesis of target molecules, and a constant refinement of growth conditions. The combination of advanced scientific knowledge and innovative technologies can open new perspectives in the production of healthier and nutritionally biofortified vegetables.”
Image: The microgreens were grown in a commercial setting. Credit: Massimiliano Renna
A research team led by Nebraska scientists has built the largest-ever metabolic model of corn to study how temperature stress affects the plant and how a certain fungus can help alleviate the problem.
The research, funded by the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy, is summarised in an article in iScience.
The model can also help field researchers with actual corn plants conduct experiments faster and more efficiently, said Niaz Bahar Chowdhury, a doctoral student working with Saha.
It’s estimated that temperature stress resulting from climate change can reduce corn productivity by 7% to 18%.
“There is a pressing need to develop high-yielding maize genotypes capable of withstanding temperature stress,” Saha said.
Scientists are focusing on how plants’ metabolism can be adjusted to counteract that stress. The team’s study takes a holistic, plant-wide approach rather than looking only at specific elements of the plant, Saha said.
Among other impacts, temperature stress can reduce photosynthesis and carbohydrate synthesis in leaves, reduce starch synthesis in kernels, and affect amino acids and lignin biosynthesis in stalks. Also, temperature stress can damage enzymes and tissues, impair flowering and trigger oxidative stress at the reproductive stage.
Saha’s team expressed excessive heat and cold data into their model, finding that both created so-called “metabolic bottlenecks” that slowed plant growth, but noting that heat was especially problematic. Excessive heat is expected to continue impeding crop growth amid ongoing climate change.
One approach to mitigate temperature stress is to reengineer the plant, creating new hybrids that are less affected by it. While that can be successful, “it’s a very, very long process,” Saha said.
In the other approach, researchers inoculated corn root with a beneficial fungus known as Rhizophagus irregularis, commonly used as a soil inoculant. The new study found that R. irregularis also was successful in reducing metabolic bottlenecks that slow plant growth under heat and cold stress conditions, Saha said. Both whole plant biomass and organ-specific biomass growth rates increased with the fungal treatment. Future research, using the same metabolic model, will focus on how R. irregularis affects plant metabolism under high- and low-nitrogen conditions.
Chowdhury and Saha said the model they have created will be available to researchers who want to study other stresses on corn.
Image: Getty/ SimonSkafar
A team of US potato experts has received a $6 million grant from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to explore how to control potato pests without using neonicotinoids.
Neonicotinoids (usually called neonics) are a type of insecticide that have been widely used in the US for 25 years. They have been an important tool for potato growers given their ease of use and low application cost.
However, thanks to environmental concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering new limitations and safety measures for using the chemicals. . Globally, the European Union has banned them, and Canada has limited their use.
The team is led by Zsofia Szendrei, a professor in MSU’s Department of Entomology. “Our team includes an outstanding group of experts who’ll together make significant progress compared to some of the existing smaller efforts without substantial funding,” Szendrei said.
The team is made up of entomologists, potato breeders, social scientists, economists and extension specialists who’ll examine the shift away from neonicotinoids using multiple approaches, with outcomes split into short-term and long-term goals.
In the short-term, entomologists will test insecticides that don’t involve neonicotinoids. Some have already been registered and approved for use, while others are experimental. Szendrei said the hope is to create pest-management programmes that are favourable to nontarget organisms and the environment.
“We’ll test different tiers of insecticide programs that rank in how friendly they are to beneficial insects and how effectively they control key pests,” Szendrei said. “It’s like a menu of different pesticides that are put together into a season-long control program.”
The grant provides funding for at least three years, with the chance for additional USDA funds to be added at a later date.
Image: MSU
