In the March issue of Fruits, vegetables and flowers you will find the opinion article entitled “The role of InnovPlantProtect in Organic Farming: Paths to sustainable and efficient solutions”, in which the executive director of InnovPlantProtect (InPP), António Saraiva, reveals how our CoLAB is contributing to the success of organic farming.
“By boosting research, collaboration and knowledge sharing, InPP is helping to solve the central challenges of this practice [organic farming], allowing it to expand and enhancing the supply of agricultural products to consumers. The solutions developed by InPP make organic farming a more viable option for producers,” says the executive director.
Read the full article and find out how we are shaping the future of agriculture.
We thank Frutas, legumes e flores magazine for its recognition and reiterate our commitment to the agriculture of the future.
Imagine a future where drones and artificial intelligence work together to protect your vineyards. That's what the AI4Leafhopper project is making a reality!
Manisha Sirsat, a researcher on the AI4Leafhopper team, has developed two artificial intelligence models that analyze the aerial images captured by our latest generation drone... and these models make it possible:
geolocation of each vine
to know if there are vine failures
quickly identify “sick” vines”
optimize the application of treatments
The result? Growers can have a detailed view of the health of their vineyards, detect problems early and make more informed decisions.
AI4Leafhopper is a project led by InPP and funded by the ICAERUS Horizon Europe program, which began in April 2024 and ended on April 30 with a final meeting involving the six European projects approved in the 1st edition of the ICAERUS program's PULL applications. The project team presented the AI-based models for detecting and monitoring the impact of the green leafhopper on vineyards.
The AI4Leafhopper project, InnovPlantProtect used a state-of-the-art drone to monitor the impact of the green leafhopper in the vineyards of our partners Reynolds Wine Growers and João Portugal Ramos. Although the results show that this advanced technology is more effective at detecting attacks at advanced stages, we are excited about the potential of this tool to provide valuable data for the management of this harmful insect.
We believe that with more research, we can refine our solution to detect early attacks and prevent significant damage to vineyards. Transforming the monitoring of this pest is where we want to go, always with the aim of protecting vineyards and guaranteeing the quality of production for winegrowers.
Over the next few days we'll be revealing everything that the AI4Leafhopper project is making a reality and how drones and artificial intelligence are working together to create a more sustainable future for viticulture. Stay tuned!
AI4Leafhopper, funded by the ICAERUS Horizon Europe program, which began in April 2024, is now in its final stages. The development phase of the project, which took place in the field, is now over and the final stage is to present the solutions developed by our team on Portuguese soil to the market.
Elvas collaborative laboratory distinguished by Rural Life as “the most significant investment in the last year in the agricultural and agro-industrial sector”.
“Investment that makes a mark” 2021 is the name of the prize awarded today to InnovPlantProtect by Rural Life. The award, conferred by the editorial board of the professional agribusiness magazine, recognizes the most significant investment in the last year in the agricultural and agro-industrial sector at a national level.
The choice of the collaborative laboratory (CoLab), based in Elvas, “aims to reinforce the importance of investing in research and innovation in a key area for the future of agriculture: the search for biologically-based solutions for crop protection, in a challenging context, in which it is necessary to ensure the production of food in an increasingly sustainable way,” explains Isabel Martins, director of the company. Rural Life and publications coordinator at IFE.
One of the laboratories in the current, temporary premises.
Field work on a property owned by Fertiprado.
This award “honors the initiative of the 12 founding partners to create an innovative institution to develop biological and digital solutions for crop protection,” says Pedro Fevereiro, the CoLab's executive director, adding: “It's an incentive for InnovPlantProtect, which set up in a low-density region and managed to attract 38 highly qualified human resources to set up a modern innovation unit. It also rewards the vision of the municipality of Elvas, which embraced this challenge from the outset.”
The “Investment that Makes a Mark” 2021 award was presented during the 8th edition of the AgroIn - Annual Agribusiness Congress, organized by Rural Life/ IFE, held in the auditorium of the Faculty of Dental Medicine of the University of Lisbon.
Pedro Fevereiro, executive director of InnovPlantProtect
The InPP team, like scientists around the world, concludes that new techniques can mitigate the challenges posed by climate change and the continuing increase in the world's population.
We know that in order to feed the world's population in 2050, we will have to increase food production by 70% [1]. And we also know that agriculture is under intense pressure to meet the sustainability goals of the European Green Deal and Farm to Fork Strategy, This is under pressure from climate change and the increase in pests and diseases attacking crops.
A team from InnovPlantProtect (InPP) reviewed hundreds of scientific articles published in recent years and concluded that “genome editing is an important tool for improving food security in a sustainable way and mitigating the challenges posed by global climate change and the expansion of the world's population”. The review article [2], entitled Genome editing for resistance against plant pests and pathogens, has just been published in Transgenic Research.
“The development of new tools to improve plant protection is critical in the context of current agricultural, environmental and ecological challenges,” say the researchers, adding that “various efforts in the area of genome editing have resulted in plants with potentially beneficial characteristics that can be quickly and easily applied in the field.”.
Crops are invariably exposed to pests and diseases (left). In order to speed up the plant breeding process, genome editing technologies such as CRISPR-Cas make it possible to introduce resistance mechanisms or remove susceptibility quickly and precisely (right).
The team analyzed the latest advances in genome editing with a view to improving plant protection, focusing on editing the genomes of crops, pests and pathogens based on the CRISPR-Cas technique (Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020). The researchers did not forget other technologies, such as host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) and the use of biocontrol agents, discussing how CRISPR-Cas can be used to accelerate the development of ecological strategies that promote sustainable agriculture in the future.
[HIGS consists of the plant producing small molecules of RNA (ribonucleic acid), which lead to the silencing of the pathogen's genes; silencing a gene means “canceling” its expression].
As genome editing does not require crossbreeding, the authors of the article point out, it avoids the introduction of unwanted characteristics through genetic linkage (a situation in which a gene with a positive characteristic is physically linked to a gene that confers negative characteristics) in improved varieties, speeding up the entire breeding process.
In addition, genome editing technologies can directly target the susceptibility genes or virulence factors of pests and pathogens, either by directly editing the genome of the pest in question, or by adding genome editing mechanisms to the plant genome, or to microorganisms that act as biocontrol agents.
Several studies have shown that the targeted inactivation of susceptibility genes through genome editing is a solid strategy for crop protection, capable of producing non-transgenic plants. The technique has been shown to be particularly effective in editing susceptibility genes to pathogenic bacteria and fungi.
“The potential impact of genome editing, and CRISPR technology in particular, on plant synthetic biology to improve resistance to pests and diseases is enormous and will have a direct effect on agricultural sustainability on a scale never seen before,” the team concludes.
Original article:
Rato, C., Carvalho, M.F., Azevedo, C. & Oblessuc, Paula. Genome editing for resistance against plant pests and pathogens. Transgenic Research (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11248-021-00262-x
Elvas City Council promotes a visit to the works in progress at InnovPlantProtect and at the Elvense pole of the National Institute for Agrarian and Veterinary Research.
The work in progress at INIAV Elvas, including those that will accommodate the permanent facilities of the InnovPlantProtect (InPP), were visited yesterday, June 16, by a delegation that included the president of the Elvas City Council, Nuno Mocinha, the vice-president of the municipality, Cláudio Carapuça, as well as a number of council technicians, the presidents of parish councils in the municipality and representatives of the media.
InPP is an institution that wants to last for many, many years, not a “one-off project”, said the executive director of the collaborative laboratory (CoLab). Pedro February He also highlighted the fact that the research and innovation carried out here “leaves” the laboratory for the field, in the form of specific, biologically-based products and services supplied to companies, farmers and producers, among others.
Nuno Mocinha stressed the CoLab's great importance for agriculture and the region, particularly thanks to the establishment of highly qualified workers dedicated to science and technology applied in the field.
The visit took place as part of a tour promoted by the CME of some of the works underway in the municipality.
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