New applications of big data to agriculture may help to boost crop production, but they’re likely to be highly dependent on specialized knowledge, according to new science coming out of university research centers.
Today, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reports at Phys.org on a University of Illinois project and subsequent journal publications showing how the use of hyperspectral cameras can help to improve plant yields by evaluating photosynthesis.
The hyperspectral camera captures parts of the light spectrum outside of the visible wavelength spectrum, and uses that data to discover plant traits that work for higher yields.
“Hyperspectral cameras are expensive and their data is not accessible to scientists who lack a deep understanding of computational analysis,” said Carl Bernacchi, a research plant physiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, as quoted by Woese.
Woese’s report shows how this process is dependent on nanotechnology and other new advances in data science.
“In (a relevant) study, the team reviewed data from two hyperspectral cameras; one that captures spectra from 400-900 nanometers and another that captures 900-1800 nanometers,” Woese writes, explaining that the effort is done in order to “identify plants with promising traits for further study.”
This new work takes place in the context of other big data initiatives that have tackled diverse aspects of farm planning for the last few years.
“North Carolina farmers have been fast adopters of precision agriculture, or ‘smart farming,’ collecting data from field-based sensors, drones, tractors and harvesters to make better decisions about irrigation, fertilizer, and weed and pest control solutions, down to the square inch,” wrote Richard Campbell for NC State University in 2017, in a precursor to additional news about irrigation, weed and pest control, and more that have revolutionized how the modern farmer enhances crop production.
As crop production remains a paramount concern for feeding the world, technologies like these can stand in for more developed chemical applications that can disturb the natural balance of our ecology and pose serious threats to human health.
Look for more as new crop science attempts to ease the burden of world hunger.