{"299801":{"#nid":"299801","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Miniature Gas Chromatograph Could Help Farmers Detect Crop Diseases Earlier","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are developing a micro gas chromatograph (GC) for early detection of diseases in crops. About the size of a 9-volt battery, the technology\u2019s portability could give farmers just the tool they need to quickly evaluate the health of their crops and address any possible threats immediately, potentially increasing yield by reducing crop losses.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s estimated that each year U.S. farmers lose 12 percent of their crops to pests and another 12 percent to diseases,\u201d said Gary McMurray, division chief of GTRI\u2019s Food Processing Technology Division.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo identify potential threats to crop health, farmers typically look for physical symptoms of disease, such as discolored or wilting leaves. However, in many cases, by the time these symptoms are visible, the plant is already dead or dying. And the culprit pathogen may have already spread to nearby plants, threatening the health of the entire crop.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe key is to give farmers the ability to get early diagnostic results, which allows them to take action before it\u2019s too late,\u201d said McMurray.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGTRI\u2019s micro gas chromatograph is a GC-on-chip device. Its separation column, where the gas interacts with the polymer coated on the interior walls, is about the size of a quarter, and the thermal conductive detector is about half the size of a penny. When the two are combined, the device itself is about the size of a 9-volt battery.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMcMurray said the goal is to be able to fit dozens of micro GCs on a ground robot that a farmer could then use in crop fields to take samples from plant to plant and get results in minutes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe idea is to have the robot be a mobile chemical laboratory that provides real-time data to the farmer. The robot provides a simple way to collect the data in an unstructured environment like a farm,\u201d said McMurray.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBecause all plants and pathogens emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), these emissions can be used as chemical markers for rapid detection. Building the micro GC was the easy part, said Jie Xu, GTRI senior research scientist. The challenge now, she explained, is correlating the VOCs emitted from plants to their health status.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s relatively easy to detect VOCs, but we still have a long way to go to interpret changes in plant VOC mixtures,\u201d said Xu.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe difficulty lies in understanding how plants react to local environmental conditions. For example, changes in temperature, humidity, and soil moisture and nutrient levels, all have an effect on VOC emissions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo determine if the emissions are due to a pathogen, a chemical signature has to be established by studying VOCs released under these different environmental conditions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers plan to conduct field tests using a benchtop model of the micro GC in summer 2014. Working with colleagues at the USDA\u2019s Agricultural Research Service, they will test peach trees for Peachtree Root Rot disease at the Southeastern Fruit and Tree Nut Research Laboratory in Byron, Ga. The goal is to collect air and soil samples that can be analyzed to identify the disease\u2019s chemical signature.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMcMurray said a portion of the collected samples will be retained for additional laboratory tests with a traditional GC-MS to confirm the effectiveness of the micro GC. The team will then pursue efforts to integrate it into an autonomous robotic platform for crop field sampling and VOC data analysis.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cReal-time data from sensing technologies like the micro GC, when used in conjunction with other data collected on the farm, could revolutionize the ability of farmers to identify sick plants before any physical symptoms appear,\u201d added McMurray.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEarlier detection also means earlier intervention, which could ultimately translate into a boon for America\u2019s farmers. \u201cIf we could cut in half the 12 percent of crop losses due to diseases, farmers could potentially realize billions of dollars more in revenue each year,\u201d said McMurray.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to agricultural applications, the micro GC could potentially be used for homeland security monitoring to detect chemical threats, such as gases in subways and dangerous explosives in vehicles.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe micro GC project is being conducted in collaboration with researchers at GTRI, Georgia Tech\u2019s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, the Department of Plant Pathology in the University of Georgia\u2019s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and the USDA\u2019s Agricultural Research Service. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: Lance Wallace (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:lance.wallace@gtri.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elance.wallace@gtri.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-407-7280) or John Toon (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-894-6986).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: Angela Colar\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are developing a micro gas chromatograph (GC) for early detection of diseases in crops. About the size of a 9-volt battery, the technology\u2019s portability could give farmers just the tool they need to quickly evaluate the health of their crops and address any possible threats immediately, potentially increasing yield by reducing crop losses.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers are developing a micro gas chromatograph for early detection of diseases in crops."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2014-05-28 09:47:15","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:29","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-05-28T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-05-28T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"299771":{"id":"299771","type":"image","title":"Micro GCS","body":null,"created":"1449244552","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:55:52","changed":"1475895000","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:00","alt":"Micro GCS","file":{"fid":"199501","name":"micro-gc3.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/micro-gc3_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/micro-gc3_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":730858,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/micro-gc3_0.jpg?itok=gJbmI0Gm"}},"299781":{"id":"299781","type":"image","title":"Micro GCS2","body":null,"created":"1449244552","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:55:52","changed":"1475895000","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:00","alt":"Micro GCS2","file":{"fid":"199502","name":"micro-gc6.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/micro-gc6_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/micro-gc6_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":955616,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/micro-gc6_0.jpg?itok=COJ2KFRm"}},"299791":{"id":"299791","type":"image","title":"Micro GCS3","body":null,"created":"1449244552","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:55:52","changed":"1475895000","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:00","alt":"Micro GCS3","file":{"fid":"199503","name":"micro-gc9.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/micro-gc9_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/micro-gc9_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":640458,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/micro-gc9_0.jpg?itok=i8n9q-ug"}}},"media_ids":["299771","299781","299791"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"154","name":"Environment"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"94131","name":"crop diseases"},{"id":"94111","name":"farming"},{"id":"11470","name":"Gary McMurray"},{"id":"94121","name":"gas chromatograph"},{"id":"416","name":"GTRI"},{"id":"94081","name":"Micro GC"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39451","name":"Electronics and Nanotechnology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71911","name":"Earth and Environment"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}