Университет штата Айдахо получил грант на разработку технологий борьбы с обломом стеблей культур

MOSCOW, Idaho — The University of Idaho received part of a $6 million grant to study a specific crop problem that can cost farmers part of their harvest each year: stalk lodging.  The plan is to combined biomechanics, engineering and AI technology to better understand stalk lodging and how to prevent it. "During windstorms, the plants break and the grain falls to the ground," said Daniel Robertson, Ph.D., associate professor with the University of Idaho. Stalk lodging is a problem that is faced globally, with billions of dollars in food lost every year to the issue. "Corn, wheat and rice make up two thirds of the world's calories, which is phenomenal when you think about there's just three plants that basically feed the whole world, and all three of those plants suffer from this problem of lodging. We're losing 5 to 20% of our harvest every year," said Robertson. Dr. Robertson said that loss not only affects farmers, but consumers too. "It drives up the cost of the grocery store for American families. And I think we could all use relief from that, right?" said Robertson The grant is shared by the University of Idaho, Clemson University in South Carolina and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. At Idaho, researchers plan to focus on how to measure stalk lodging in the field. "One of the biggest challenges with stock lodging is farmers just don't have a good way to measure it. In Idaho, a big focus for us is trying to automate measurements of plant strength in the field so that we could collect the data during harvest," said Robertson. Dr. Robertson said his goal may be small to some, but would save billions of dollars.  "My goal has always been to reduce lodging by 1%. What seems what seems like not a very big goal, right? But put that in perspective. If I can lower lodging just in maize, just in corn, just in the United States by 1%, we need to go from 5% to 4%..." said Robertson, "You're talking billions and billions of dollars in grain produced every year." The University of Idaho, along with the other two universities tasked with this research, will be hiring many researchers and engineers to help with this project.