California Fruit and Vegetable

Tag: National Institute of Food and Agriculture

  • UC Davis Seeks Mighty Bacteria-Resistant Lettuce

    Maeli Melotto and her team at the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences are looking for strains of lettuce that are genetically stronger at resisting bacteria that can make people sick. Their work has led to the identification of a gene that could play a role in the plant’s susceptibility to E. coli, a bacterium that causes potentially lethal intestinal illness.

    If the team could develop lettuce that can fight off the bacterium, that would avoid thousands of cases of sickness each year, cut production costs for farmers and save millions of dollars in public health expenses.

    Lettuce “sweats” substances onto the surface of leaves that E. coli and other bacteria can eat. In addition, bacteria can live just below the surface of lettuce leaves. Melotto, a professor specializing in the interactions between plants and microbes, is studying the genetic factors that determine how long bacteria can endure in the leaves. She and her team looked at more than 300 samples of lettuce and how they react to the pathogens, identifying the gene responsible for letting them in.

    Their next step is to test whether removing that gene could make lettuce more resistant to bacteria.

    Maeli Melotto, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, and her team have found a gene she thinks governs whether lettuce can resist bacteria such as E. coli. (Trina Kleist/UC Davis)

    Some lettuce more likely to “feed” bacteria

    In a related study, Melotto’s team is looking at the surface of lettuce leaves and the layer just below the surface, which has tiny spaces where bacteria can live. The researchers want to learn what natural chemicals are in these two areas, and what compounds lettuce releases onto the surface of leaves that bacteria can use as food. Melotto expects to find that some types of lettuce are genetically disposed toward “feeding” bacteria.

    Melotto presented her findings at meetings earlier this year of the California Specialty Crops Council and the California Leafy Greens Research Board. Her work is funded in part by a five-year grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

  • Automation Helps Solve Specialty Crop Challenges

    With support from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Multistate Research Fund, researchers at 17 land-grant universities are working together to develop automated systems that work well for labor-intensive specialty crops like fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, and nursery plants. A multi-state collaborative approach lifts the burden of research and development from a single specialty crop sector and spurs major advances.

    Automation is helping the specialty crop industry overcome labor shortages, fine-tune management decisions, conserve resources and meet growing demand. Consistent with the USDA Agriculture Innovation Agenda, advances in technology for growing, harvesting, handling, and processing are generating significant savings for growers and consumers, while improving sustainability.

    University of Florida scientists developed a robot that counts and maps the fruit on citrus trees, and University of California-Davis researchers developed fruit-picking carts with instruments that map orchard fruits. These automated devices have helped farmers see if and where production issues arise, so they can make targeted, effective management decisions. Accurate yield estimates are also important for programming harvest machines and making marketing decisions.

    Automated disease detection and management technologies could mitigate crop losses. For example, Iowa State University scientists are guiding the manufacturing of technology that reduces pesticide drift. Washington State University scientists developed drones to deter birds that eat and damage fruit crops. And, handheld devices designed by University of Hawaii researchers give coffee growers an inexpensive way to spot leaf water stress and optimize irrigation.

    To overcome labor shortages and cut labor costs, Washington State University scientists designed a robotic twining machine for hops, and University of Georgia researchers are perfecting affordable automated technologies for efficient blueberry harvest. A new pruning method recommended by Pennsylvania State University Extension could cut pruning time by 42% and save $136 per acre. Automation can also make labor less dangerous. For example, a harvest-assist device designed at Penn State eliminated ladder falls and reduced the time apple pickers spent in awkward, dangerous postures from 65% to 43% of picking time.

    Automation won’t soon replace the keen eye of talented growers, but these technologies will reduce costs, improve quality, and ensure consumer satisfaction, while eliminating some on-farm health risks, increasing efficiency, and reducing environmental impacts.

    Learn more about this USDA-NIFA funded project: W2009: Integrated Systems Research and Development in Automation and Sensor for Sustainability of Specialty Crops(link is external) (2013-2018). Learn more about NIFA Impacts.

    This research supports the “value-added innovation” theme outlined in the USDA Science Blueprint and moves us closer to meeting the goals outlined in USDA’s Agriculture Innovation Agenda. Learn more about The Hatch Act of 1887 (NIFA’s Multistate Research Fund).

    Advances in technology, automation, and remote sensing is a cross-cutting, macro movement in science impacting agriculture outlined in the USDA Science Blueprint (PDF, 2.6 MB). The Science Blueprint guides USDA’s science priorities for the next 5 years, building from past success. Relative to other crops, many specialty crops are more dependent on agricultural labor for production, harvesting, and processing. This is part of a blog series that highlights research investments to advance automation and mechanization for specialty crops. — By Sara Delheimer, NIFA-funded Multistate Research Fund Impacts Program

  • Automated System Would Deliver Chemicals to Help Ward off Citrus Greening

    GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Imagine using a robotic arm to grip and puncture the trunk of a citrus tree to deliver chemicals into the vascular parts of the plant, reducing its susceptibility to the citrus greening disease.

    Ozgur Batuman, an assistant professor of plant pathology at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, leads a team of researchers trying to make the automated delivery system a reality to help growers deal with the disease. Greening has led to huge losses for Florida’s multibillion dollar-a-year citrus industry.

    “The automated delivery system can be installed on any farm equipment and be operated by anyone who is driving – physically or remotely,” Batuman said. The person will be trained to use a joystick to control the arm that delivers the chemicals, he said.

    To conduct the research, scientists will use a $3.4 million grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, an arm of the USDA.

    The system would extend from a tractor or ATV to grab the tree trunk. Because the grip has many small needles, it can create numerous tiny openings in the tree, said Batuman, a faculty member at the UF/IFAS Southwest Florida Research and Education Center in Immokalee, Florida.

     

    Psyllids Thumb

    Bactericides can enter the tree through those small openings, he said. These areas on the trunk with openings will be covered with a reservoir, such as a funnel or plastic balloon, that will hold the liquid containing the bactericide, Batuman said. The liquid then slowly enters through the holes of the trunk.

    This contrasts with traditional tree trunk injections, in which a grower would use large, single-needle syringes to inject liquid materials in one spot, Batuman said.

    Most bactericide treatments are not very effective at staving off citrus greening because they were not directly delivered into the citrus vascular system, where greening — and its associated bacterium, Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas) lives, he said. The therapeutic chemicals can kill or suppress the growth of CLas and can be used in greening-affected plants, Batuman said. The system can also help newly planted trees fight greening by controlling the Asian citrus psyllid, which can transmit greening into citrus plants, he said.

    Researchers see the automated delivery system as part of an integrated pest management program to help stem the psyllid.

    “We are developing a delivery method that will send chemicals with therapeutic potential into phloem, where bacteria live,” Batuman said.

    This four-year project will also study citrus vascular systems with a multidisciplinary research team. Members of the team are
    , an associate professor of plant pathology; Amit Levy, an assistant professor of plant pathology; Ute Albrecht, an assistant professor of horticultural sciences; Fernando Alferez, an assistant professor of horticultural sciences; Yiannis Ampatzidis, an assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering and Tara Wade, an assistant professor of food and resource economics – all with UF/IFAS. Also on the team are Louise Ferguson, an Extension specialist with the University of California-Davis and Veronica Ancona, an assistant professor of plant pathology at the Texas A&M University-Kingsville Citrus Center.

    By: Brad Buck, 352-294-3303, bradbuck@ufl.edu