CERMETEK — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase II: 8.4

Description

The Commercialization of a New Agriculture Subsystem (LeafMon-S) for Online Real-Time LeafMonitoring to Determine Crop Health (Water Stress Level) for Precision Irrigation and WaterConservationABSTRACTRecurring droughts present a serious challenge for irrigated Agriculture not only in Californiaand dry Western United Sates but also arid and semi-arid regions of much of the world. Thesedroughts combined with the increased requirements for water for environmental and urbanpurposes have greatly reduced the surface water available for irrigation. In many areas thedepletion of ground water prevents it from being even a short-term solution. When weconsider California agriculture almost all of the nearly $50 billion of crops are produced fromabout April to October during which time State receives virtually no precipitation. Withoutirrigation water none of these crops could be produced.We are hereby submitting a proposal to commercialize a new technology which could result inthe saving of agricultural water. The initial basis for this technology which was developed at theUniversity of California Davis has been proven in research field tests to save up to 30% inwater usage for major crops like almond walnuts and grapes when compared toevapotranspiration (ET) requirements. These research projects were conducted under the auspicesof Dr. Shrinivasa Upadhyaya Distinguished Professor Emeritus Bio Ag and Engineering Deptat the University of California at Davis. Cermetek Microelectronics has subsequently licensedthis technology known as "LeafMon" with a goal of commercializing it. To accomplish thisgoal we secured a Phase I SBIR research grant. The intent was to commercialize this sensorand make it cost effective easy to use and provide growers worldwide with an invaluable toolfor managing precision irrigation. We were able to achieve our goal by adding a second IRsensor to the original sensor and incorporating an energy efficient and universal SDI-12interface resulting in our "LeafMon-S" sensor. These enhancements made it possible todetermine plant water status computation more robust and enabled the sensor to be easilyinterfaced to commercially available data communication networks. Moreover we were able tosimplify the sensor housing to reduce the cost significantly (- just about the cost of a goodquality soil moisture sensor). Our initial development of the LeafMon-S product with early fieldusage has provided very encouraging results with growers of pistachios almonds and walnuts.In this Phase II proposal we plan to further improve the LeafMon-S sensor by deployingartificial intelligence (AI) techniques to implement our plant water status computation evenmore robustly. In particular developing a better way to detect saturated leaf temperature usedin plant water status computations by addressing plant "Metabolic Memory" or stressacclimatization issues. Moreover we plan to compare our sensor with some of the othersensors that are currently under development and conducting field trials in almondspistachios and walnuts in collaborating growers' orchards. Upon completion of Phase II wewill fully commercialize this product in Phase III utilizing funds generated from ongoingCermetek operations.