Reducing the use of pesticides by early visual detection of diseases in precision agriculture is important. Because of the color similarity between potato-plant diseases, narrow band hyper-spectral imaging is required. Payload constraints on unmanned aerial vehicles require reduc- tion of spectral bands. Therefore, we present a methodology for per-patch classification combined with hyper-spectral band selection. In controlled experiments performed on a set of individual leaves, we measure the performance of five classifiers and three dimensionality-reduction methods with three patch sizes. With the best-performing classifier an error rate of 1.5% is achieved for distinguishing two important potato-plant diseases.
MULTIFILE
De fysische, chemische en microbiologische gevaren van het opwerken van vezelcomponenten uit reststromen van uien zijn geanalyseerd op basis van literatuuronderzoek. Uienreststromen zijn geschikt voor het winnen van olie door middel van stoomdestillatie of eiwitten door middel van iso-elektrische precipitatie. Bij deze processen wordt ook de uienschil verwerkt. Er blijft o.a. een vezelrijke fractie over die in principe geschikt is voor humane consumptie. Fysische vreemde delen vormen zeer zelden een acuut risico voor de gezondheid. De meest voorkomende pesticiden op ui zijn maleïnehydrazide, fluopyram en fipronil. Incidenteel kan de maximaal toelaatbare hoeveelheid van een pesticide overschreden worden, maar dit heeft geen acute nadelige gezondheidsgevolgen. Van zware metalen is er alleen Europese wetgeving voor gehaltes aan lood en cadmium in ui. Microbiologische gevaren voor de processen zijn gerelateerd aan vegetatieve cellen, toxines of sporen van pathogenen. Vegetatieve cellen zijn alleen een risico voor onverhitte vezelfracties of na kruisbesmetting. Toxines kunnen nog actief zijn na stoomdestillatie en ook na pasteurisatie van eiwitpasta. Hetzelfde geldt voor de sporen van bacteriën. Om ontkieming van sporen te voorkomen moet de uienstroom boven 48 °C gehouden worden of snel worden gekoeld .
MULTIFILE
The Dutch floriculture is globally leading, and its products, knowledge and skills are important export products. New challenges in the European research agenda include sustainable use of raw materials such as fertilizer, water and energy, and limiting the use of pesticides. Greenhouse growers however have little control over crop growth conditions in the greenhouse at individual plant level. The purpose of this project, ‘HiPerGreen’, is to provide greenhouse owners with new methods to monitor the crop growth conditions in their greenhouse at plant level, compare the measured growth conditions and the measured growth with expected conditions and expected growth, to point out areas with deviations, recommend counter-measures and ultimately to increase their crop yield. The main research question is: How can we gather, process and present greenhouse crop growth parameters over large scale greenhouses in an economical way and ultimately improve crop yield? To provide an answer to this question, a team of university researchers and companies will cooperate in this applied research project to cover several different fields of expertise The application target is floriculture: the production of ornamental pot plants and cut flowers. Participating companies are engaged in the cultivation of pot plans, flowers and suppliers of greenhouse technology. Most of the parties fall in the SME (MKB) category, in line with the RAAK MKB objectives.Finally, the Demokwekerij and Hortipoint (the publisher of the international newsletter on floriculture) are closely involved. The project will develop new knowledge for a smart and rugged data infrastructure for growth monitoring and growth modeling in the greenhouse. In total the project will involve approximately 12 (teacher) researchers from the universities and about 60 students, who will work in the form of internships and undergraduate studies of interesting questions directly from the participating companies.
Treatment of crops with insecticides remains essential because globally more than 75 billion dollars is lost through crop destruction by invasive insects. However it is accompanied by severe disadvantages including i. increasing resistance of the target insects against insecticides and ii. the undesired lethality of beneficial insects such as bees and other pollinator species. The significant reduction of insect species during the last years, at least partly caused by the presently available insecticides has also effects on insect-eating species. Last but not least the presence of residual amount of insecticides in the environment (soil and plants), because of poor (bio)degradation, is another distinct disadvantage. Therefore, the overall aim of this proposal is to design and synthesize peptide based biopesticides. This should lead to Nature inspired green alternatives for insect control because "Peptides" are the small equivalents of "proteins", that are biomolecules, which are universally present in all organisms and subject to their natural biodegradation mechanisms, as well as also chemically degraded in the soil (water, heat, UV, oxygen). Design and synthesis of these environmentally benign compounds will eventually take place in a founded company called "INNOVAPEPLINE". Evaluation of candidate peptide based biopesticides can be carried out in collaboration with a recently founded company (spin-out of the University of Glasgow) called "SOLASTA BIO" (founders professors Shireen Davies, Julian Dow and Rob Liskamp) and/or with other (third) parties such as the University of Wageningen. Upon recent identification of promising candidate compounds ("leads"), chemical optimization studies of leads will take place, followed by evaluation in field trials. In this proposal design, synthesis and chemical optimization of the biological activity of new peptides and development of methods to monitor their biodegradation rate will take place. Thereby expanding the repertoire of peptide based biopesticides. (292 words)
The expanding world’s population challenges the way we produce and supply food. The ever-increasing production of food and its subsequent generated biomass forms immense risks to the environment and, eventually, public health. Aside from developing innovative food production methods (hydroponics, non-toxic pesticides, resistant species), the generation of waste biomass remains a challenge. Large volumes of food waste are processed in animal food, biofuel or used as a composting source, while these by-products are valuable sources of bioactive compounds (BACs). The processing of fruits and vegetables generates a variety of biomass such as peels, seeds and pulp that contain high-value compounds such as polyphenols. These BACs are implemented in pharmaceutical products or food supplements for their beneficial influence on human health, such as antioxidant or anti-inflammatory properties. The valorization and extraction of these compounds originating from agricultural waste streams is a key strategy for recycling and reusing food waste and, subsequently, reducing the environmental impact caused by waste streams. Additionally, the ability to further process food waste into valuable compounds can provide an extra source of income for the agricultural sector, supporting local economies. Local pharmaceutical companies are interested in developing methods to extract BACs from local sources since the current market is strongly dependent on the Asian market. Phytopharma finds the production of local food supplements crucial for the local circular economy and their sustainable business. During this project, the consortium partners will investigate sustainable extraction methods of BACs from local waste streams (duurzame chemie: bronnen en grondstoffen). More specifically Zuyd, CHILL and Phytopharma will pursue the “green” extraction of quercetin (BACs) from locally sourced onion waste. The partners will explore various extraction and purification methods needed to evaluate a potentially sustainable business model. Furthermore, the bioavailability of quercetin will be enhanced by encapsulation.
