Discovering how to feed, clothe, heal and fuel a growing population is no easy task, and no one entity can do it alone. The North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative (N.C. PSI) brings together leading minds from academia, government, industry and start-ups to collaborate on data-driven plant sciences and develop resilient agricultural systems. N.C. PSI and its partners are creating a …

Being able to identify crop problems early can make the difference between saving a crop and losing it, but high-tech solutions can be costly. An interdisciplinary team of researchers are launching an inexpensive camera system that can monitor crop stress remotely-and it costs less than the average smartwatch. Developed by NC State computer vision and machine learning expert Paula Ramos-Giraldo, …

The $30 million Collaborative Crop Resilience Program (CCRP) brings together investigators from NC State University and three Danish institutions to discover ways to leverage the plant microbiome to make wheat more resilient against heat, drought and frost. Funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the parent organization of biological solutions leader Novozymes, the interdisciplinary research team will examine the microbes that …

When it comes to growing sweet potatoes, North Carolina is a superstar – growing more than the next three states combined. Now an interdisciplinary team from NC State, SAS and Intero Life Sciences are partnering for a three-year project that will use artificial intelligence to make sweet potatoes even more profitable. The team will work with sweet potato producers including …

Early detection of disease is critical for reducing its impact – that’s as true for plants as it is for people. And early detection of crop diseases can make or break a farmer’s growing season. That’s why an interdisciplinary team of researchers at NC State is setting out to combine small sensors with big data to detect diseases plaguing tomato …