A new project has started in Zimbabwe led by Josep Lluís Araus, professor from the Department of Plant Biology of Universitat de Barcelona and head of the Consolidated Research Group on Ecophysiology of Mediterranean Agriculture, with the purpose of being able to select the strongest specimen of maize for further breeding.
The biggest problem with proper crop breeding is currently the fact that we are not able to identify the phenotype, the complete set of genetical traits, of all the individual plants when they are grown at a large scale. This prevents us from effectively selecting the most tolerant specimens to harsh conditions present in developing countries, such as poor soil fertility and frequent droughts caused by high temperatures.
Maize was selected for the research as it is the most consumed cereal in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and it is grown under varying conditions. As the current climate may grow even worse, developing countries are in urgent need of a low cost solution. That is where the project comes into play, as it aims to design the ideal low cost unmanned vehicle capable of obtaining necessary information about a large number of plants.
The current aircraft design has a fitting name – „Skywalker“. It is equipped with spectral and infrared cameras which are positioned on its wings. These instruments allow it to aquire the most important data for improving our ability to breed drought tolerant maize varieties with low nitrogen requirements – the crops growth, avaible water in the soil and the plant’s temperature. The exact technical specifications of the UAV are the following :
Flight time: 30-45 minutes
Distance: 600 meters
Avg. Speed: 45 kph
Ability to have the flight plan pre-programmed.
The project was founded by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and the UAV’s flight control system was designed by Airelectronics, which has also installed the sensor. The sensor selection and the software required for transferring and processing all the required data was done by the Teledection Group of the Institue for Sustainable Agriculture of CSIC.
The project, founded by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), has the collaboration of the company Airelectronics —which designed the flight control system and installed sensors on the plane— and the Teledetection Group of the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture of CSIC, in Córdoba, responsible for selecting platform’s sensors and the software to transfer and process information data.
My personal opinion is that the research is very promising because sorting through hundreds of specimens is not something humans should be doing without proper technology and we might perhaps even discover new information regarding genetics in general.
Image credit: Universitat de Barcelona
Příspěvek Skywalker, the UAV that can recognize strong maize crops. pochází z MENSURO