Grape Disease
Mycotoxins affect some 25% of foods worldwide.
What could possibly be worse than anticipating a fantastic crop, only to witness it being wiped out by a disease-causing pathogen? Picking that bumper crop, preparing it for shipping and finding out it’s infected as it arrives overseas. Both scenarios are real problems for fruit growers and ones that can be anticipated before they go full-blown with Flex-Alert technology.
Orchard & Vine spoke with Jacek Chrostowski, president and chief strategy officer with Flex-Alert, to find out more about the three-year-old Internet-based solution company that began developing low cost agriculture sensors. The practical journey of Flex-Alert took flight addressing mycotoxins in maize in Tanzania.
Jacek Chrostowski
Jacek Chrostowski, president and chief strategy officer with Flex-Alert
“We received a very prestigious Grand Challenges Canada award to develop such low cost devices connected to the Internet,” Chrostowski says. “Mycotoxins affect some 25% of foods worldwide resulting in a large number of diseases in humans and animals.”
It was ‘The Internet of Things’ – a relatively new term describing the network connectivity of everyday electronics and devices without human intervention – that allowed for the affordability of monitoring. Certainly other field monitoring systems are available, but they require purchase of expensive proprietary systems. MicroFlex Field Nodes use wireless communication of real-time field, storage and packaged crop information to web-based control systems.
Potential pathogen issues can be detected before visual field monitoring identifies them allowing the rapid response needed to reduce potentially costly and hazardous issues. The ability to detect pathogens in Africa led to Chrostowski approaching the BC Cherry Growers Association in late 2014 with the idea to adapt the system to the organization’s needs. Funding obtained through Investment Agriculture Foundation helped make the project come to life.
“The trial project is underway with 10 orchards of different sizes,” Chrostowski says. “We are evaluating the early season appearance of pathogens such as powdery mildew, brown rot and botrytis and effects of weather conditions on the farms so we can predict the need for spraying on particular days (direct cost reduction) and predict the appearance of rot, such as brown rot, during the harvest.”
Early prediction of brown rot can eliminate producer losses caused by shipping infected cherries to customers that arrive unsaleable. It allows growers the confidence to ship what they know to be healthy, first-grade products to other countries and reduce both shipping and insurance costs.
While Flex Alert offers solutions to detect contamination at all stages: growth, storage, packing, shipping and receiving, the nodes in the field (the growth stage) are where growers are likely to see the greatest benefits. The new generation microFlex field nodes will each monitor one acre of soil humidity, leaf wetness, temperature, wind, soil condition, nutrients and levels of mycotoxins. The resulting date goes into Flex-Alert’s software to offer the grower with a complete picture.
“The next phase of work is to expand the collection of data to other environmental components such as heavy metals in water, air pollution, cameras, etc., which the microFlex platform allows with a minimal cost,” says Chrostowski.
The proprietary biosensor technology that detects the presence of mycotocins is perhaps the most unique aspect of Flex-Alert’s solution. It reduces the costs of spraying while also eliminating the question of a crop’s health during transport and delivery. Proven in Europe, Flex-Alert can provide detection of pathogens in cherries, grapes and other fruit crops. ■
Find out more at www.flex-alert.com.