10174364Feasibility for Instantaneous, Large Scale, Low Cost and Field-Ready Hyperspectral Monitoring of Plant Pathogens Trained Using Novel Plasmonic TechnologyActiveCollaborative R&DInnovate UKFarmers face growing pressures from crop disease, rising input costs, and the need to meet new environmental standards. Each year in the UK, pests and diseases reduce yields by around £3 billion, while nearly 900,000 tonnes of nitrogen fertiliser are applied, much of it wasted. This harms farm profitability and contributes significantly to avoidable greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution. Crop threats and soil symbiont health cannot be tracked in real time leading to late-diagnosis of infections and poor management/understanding of the soil-microbiome. This project, led by Rapidx Bio in partnership with Aberystwyth University, will deliver the UK's first field-ready, scalable and low-cost plant pathogen/symbiont diagnostic system. Using a handheld device platform, farmers will be able to test crude leaf or root samples and receive results in under ten minutes, detecting both harmful plant pathogens (such as blight, powdery mildew and rusts) and beneficial microbes that support nutrient uptake and resilience. This dual insight enables farmers to act early against disease, preventing blanket spraying and reducing fertiliser usage cutting costs (20% input-reduction), emissions (upto 5MtCO2-eq/year) and drastically increasing yield and profitability (upto 40%). Our project uniquely combines molecular diagnostics with hyperspectral imagery to produces powerful predictive models that not only support on-farm decisions but also provide regional surveillance of plant health, diagnosing threats in real time and warning farmers for emerging threats. In the longer term, the ability to instantaneously map and correlate soil microbes, plant pathogens, crop yield, fertilizer input and plant health will enable a broader shift towards pre-biotic soil nutrition, emphasis on top-soil health and microbial diversity, enabling natural remediation of soil and early isolation of infected plants, drastically reducing fertiliser and toxic pest-control chemical usage. Shifting from lab-based techniques(£100+/run/site costing over £20K for a 200-hectare-sampling) to imaging will enable-scalable(global-coverage), affordable(under £0.5 per 200-hectare farm site). Aberystwyth University brings world-leading expertise in plant science and AI. Local farms will host the first trials, ensuring the system is designed with farmers' input from the start. The resulting dataset -- over 5,000 matched diagnostic and imaging records -- will create a foundation for future UK and international deployment. By enabling earlier disease control, smarter fertiliser use, and stronger evidence for export compliance, this project supports farm profitability, environmental sustainability, and national food security. It positions North Wales as a testbed for cutting-edge agri-tech, while opening global opportunities in a plant-diagnostics market forecast to reach nearly £8 billion by 2033\.