Nanotechnology will help in detecting plant diseases

24 February 2009

Researchers at Texas AgriLife Research are planning to use nanotechnology for detecting plant disease at an early stage so that ton’s of food is protected from the possible outbreak. U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided a grant of $1 million for the next three years and researchers are working to find a solution for protecting the food and agriculture from bacteria, fungus and viral agents.

At present the detection technique takes days to find the plant disease and researchers are focusing to find a short and possible detection system that can give results within a few hours. For achieving their goal, plant pathology experts are joining hands to the nanotechnology specialists so that the combined efforts could lead to a better detection system.

Researchers are looking for a simple system that is portable and accurate and does not require any complicated technique for operation so that even a simple farmer can use the portable system and can address the disease. The major problems with plants is that unlike humans, they do not have immune system and if any new plant pathogen is present in the area, plants are not able to protect themselves.

For the present project, researchers will make a kit and will evaluate and test the kit in real agricultural fields. Thereafter the team will also evaluate the kit for its user friendliness. The team will come out with a prototype in the next three years and is quite hopeful to achieve their aim.

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