BLIGHTSENSE - DEVELOPMENT OF A RAPID BIOSENSOR SYSTEM FOR IN-FIELD DETECTION OF POTATO BLIGHT

Potato late blight is one of the world's most devastating crop diseases, responsible for £3.5Bn pa global economic losses (AHDB, 2011). It is a major threat to food security, compounding the stagnating potato yields witnessed over the last decade. In the UK it costs £350/ha to control, equating to £72M pa in high-pressure blight seasons, with 430K tonne losses (TSL, 2014).
In collaboration with Soil Essentials (a leading Scottish precision-farming SME), the James Hutton Institute (world-leading late blight experts), Mylnefield Research Services (JHI commercial arm) and Syngenta (Global agri-business leader), this project will develop & demonstrate a low-cost, rapid, sample-to-result biosensor device (BlightSense) for early detection of air-borne sporangia of the oomycete pathogen (P.infestans), the cause of potato late blight. This will significantly improve in-field disease risk assessment & control, in order to increase crop marketable yield & quality.
BlightSense will incorporate low-cost, antibody-coated sensing consumables with a proven (Rotarod) air-sampling spore trap, with a view to producing a fully integrated wireless product to be placed at various locations in the field to help map the blight risk. The proprietary sensing element excites acoustic waves inside small 'buckets', which have the dual role of capturing the spores and bringing them into contact with microscopic vibrations that can decode the presence of spore particles. A continuous mode of operation is envisaged throughout the growing season with weekly consumable replenishment. Depending on the detection performance required by the farmer, the sensing device will bring 3 levels of specificity: Level 1 (based on size separation); Level 2 (based on shape recognition) and Level 3 (highly specific antibody-capture). The system will generate a wireless signal with information about the size and frequency of the vibrations, which in turn flag the presence of P. infestans sporangia when they bind to the sensor surface. Combined with other sensors in the field, this data (disseminated via GSM) can indicate pathogen sources and direction to a very high probability. Due to the efficient contact between the spore and the sensor devices the system will provide near real-time feedback to a superior level of accuracy than currently available systems.
To support sustainability, as a platform technology, the underpinning acoustic sensing device can be adapted by changing the size of the acoustic elements and the specific type of adjoining materials, which are carefully optimised for monitoring other air-borne and water-borne environmental pollutants, with wide applicability not only within agriculture, but other diagnostic industries such as healthcare and biodefence.

Potato late blight is one of the world's most devastating crop diseases, responsible for £3.5Bn pa global economic losses (AHDB, 2011). BlightSense will incorporate low-cost, antibody-coated sensing consumables with a proven (Rotarod) air-sampling spore trap, with a view to producing a fully integrated wireless product to be placed at various locations in the field to help map the blight risk. The proprietary sensing element excites acoustic waves inside small 'buckets', which have the dual role of capturing the spores and bringing them into contact with microscopic vibrations that can decode the presence of spore particles. A continuous mode of operation is envisaged throughout the growing season with weekly consumable replenishment. Depending on the detection performance required by the farmer, the sensing device will bring 3 levels of specificity: Level 1 (based on size separation); Level 2 (based on shape recognition) and Level 3 (highly specific antibody-capture). The system will generate a wireless signal with information about the size and frequency of the vibrations, which in turn flag the presence of P. infestans sporangia when they bind to the sensor surface. Combined with other sensors in the field, this data (disseminated via GSM) can indicate pathogen sources and direction to a very high probability. Due to the efficient contact between the spore and the sensor devices the system will provide near real-time feedback to a superior level of accuracy than currently available systems. To support sustainability, as a platform technology, the underpinning acoustic sensing device can be adapted by changing the size of the acoustic elements and the specific type of adjoining materials, which are carefully optimised for monitoring other air-borne and water-borne environmental pollutants, with wide applicability not only within agriculture, but other diagnostic industries such as healthcare and biodefence.

The outcome of this project is to enable in-field monitoring of the pathogens responsible for potato late blight, with a view to improving disease risk assessment, informing fungicide application decisions and ultimately minimising economic and crop losses. Effective management of plant disease is critical to closing the gap between yield potential and realised marketable yield. With global annual losses of $3.5Bn associated with the devastating impact of potato late blight, the potential impact of this project is substantial.
CONSORTIUM PARTNERS:
Soil Essentials benefit from significant business expansion via hardware and software sales for improved disease risk assessment and crop protection recommendations. This builds upon their core business model currently focused on agronomy/IT service provision and machine control. Syngenta has the potential to benefit from defending sales of their control products (fungicides) in the face of changing legislation.
For the academics, the co-operative multidisciplinary convergence of acoustics, electronics, advanced materials, blight epidemiology, ICT and agriculture will enable significant knowledge transfer between the different disciplines, with far reaching benefits throughout not only for the academic groups involved but throughout the international research community associated with these many disciplines.
For JHI, access to new sensing/diagnostic technologies from UC enables exploitation for a variety of crop diseases, and for UC, the opportunity to leverage sensor development advances in the medical diagnostics sector for the benefit of agriculture, opens up a wide range of applications for this platform technology. Both academic institutions benefit from highly-skilled employment, education and training.
WIDER SOCIETAL IMPACT:
Ultimately, impact will be felt across the entire value chain ; growers, processors, retailers & consumers will all benefit, economically, socially, and environmentally. The cost saving to the average UK farm (51Ha) is envisaged to be in the order of £18Kpa, based on a 5% increase in marketable yield due to reduced disease impact & 10% reduction in fungicide use.
Increasing yield & quality enables more affordable food via better pricing & consistent supply of higher-quality produce. Reliance on imports of lower-priced varieties from the continent will reduce & this will enhance UK food security. Also, a reduction in the time spent by farmers scouting for disease & estimating severity will enable an increased quality of working life by more effective time management & improved safety.
Environmental benefits cannot be overstated & are based around increased efficiency of disease control enabling 10-15% reduction in agrochemical waste, decreased CO2 emissions & water consumption from fungicide spraying tractors. These benefits could be greater outside the UK, particularly where farming operations are larger scale, more remote & less regulated, & prophylactic application of more environmentally damaging fungicides are mainstream given visual crop disease scouting is often impractical.
The project is timely given the current economic (market pressure to reduce 40% crop waste) & environmental (increasing EU legislative pressure to reduce agro-chemical use) drivers affecting the speed of uptake of precision agriculture, & the opportunity to capitalise on cross-sector (medical diagnostic) technological advancements. It reinforces collaborative commitment to R&D in agriculture, ensuring that UK Plc maintains its international competitive edge against overseas economies, contributing to the nation's wealth. The real potential for a 5% increase in marketable yield (worth £40Mpa to the UK potato industry alone) & the ability to adapt the technology to other crop disease markets for wider agricultural impact, represents an attractive return on public funds.