Minisode: International Conference for Integrative Precision Agriculture

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Emily Davenport: 0:01

Welcome to Cultivating Curiosity, where we get down and dirty with the experts on all the ways science and agriculture touch our lives, from what we eat to how we live. I'm Emily Davenport.

Jordan Powers: 0:12

And I'm Jordan Powers, and we're from the University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

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Jordan Powers: 0:20

The first Integrative Precision Agriculture conference will be held at UGA, May 18, and 19th. This is a chance for industry leaders around the world and precision agriculture researchers to get together and collaborate on the most critical issues facing crop and animal production today. In this mini episode, we sat down with George Vellidis, professor in Crop and Soil Sciences, and Simer Virk, assistant professor and Extension precision agriculture specialist in Crop and Soil Sciences, to discuss what to expect out of the upcoming conference.

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Jordan Powers: 0:51

We know the IPA international conference is coming up here in May. Can you tell us a little bit about how this conference might contribute to the future of agriculture or Integrative Precision Agriculture specifically?

George Vellidis: 1:02

Well, let me start since I've been involved in this, a little bit more than Simer has and he can describe a little bit later what his involvement is. I'd like to back up a little bit and talk about the formation of the Institute of Integrative Precision Ag first. So when our provost, Dr. Hu, came on board, I think he did a survey of our stakeholders to find out what the university should be investing in to move the state's economy forward, and with a focus on technology. And one of the things that came up from his surveys was that precision agriculture would be a good way for the university to invest to help technology grow in Georgia and also help Georgia's biggest industry grow faster. We began a process of developing this Institute of Integrative Precision Agriculture to help the faculty at UGA work together and collaborate more easily on solving agricultural problems that can be solved through technology or data analysis, or all these things we've talked about so far. So the Institute has been in place for about a year now. We're up to 45, maybe, members, faculty members that have joined the Institute. So these are from all disciplines at the university from the College of Ag, of the College of Engineering, and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, from Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. And the idea is that we're all going to be working together. But many of the people that have joined the Institute don't have sort of the fundamental understanding of precision ag and the current problems like Simer and I have because we've been in this our whole careers. And so the goal of the conference is to bring growers, farmers from Georgia, to describe the problems they're facing and the problems they think that technology can help them solve. And then to have experts from all over the world inform us of the cutting-edge technologies that are currently available, or what will be coming available in the near future that can help address these problems. And the conference is really targeting UGA faculty and grad students as the audience so that they can hear this information. And then we can try to form teams that will address these problems that will help our growers in the near term and the long term. So that's the plan for the conference. And we have had, I think, a very, very good turnout in terms of number of graduate students that have registered for the conference. And likewise, a large number of the IIPA faculty have registered for the conference. So we're looking forward to having a really good interaction and exchange of ideas.

Simer Virk: 3:30

And it's gonna bring, you know, a lot of people who are working in the Precision Ag space together. Like George said, internally, especially there, there are, I think, IIPA faculty located on all three campuses, you know, and I think it's opportunity for all of us to connect with each other, know what their specialties, expertise, all those are and where we can collaborate on some of the solutions. I think the other big thing I'm excited about also is we're bringing a lot of these, I think George called them thought leaders, or people who are really good at what they do, and they're outside, they're from other universities, industry, whether they have really built a top notch program at their institution or in their field, where they do or it's industry. I think I'm excited to listen to their thoughts on how we're progressing in agriculture today, or what they think five ahead years, what's going to happen. I think it's really good time for a lot of us to kind of take notes on some of that and see how they're envisioning everything. And maybe even if it's a great opportunity for UGA and all of us to connect with some of those, you know, we're really well connected with industry in Georgia and a little bit in the US, but that may be another opportunity to expand our collaborations beyond.

George Vellidis: 4:45

Let me give you a couple of examples of issues that the growers who will be attending the conference are going to be presenting. So I've had conversations with the growers, and I'm conveying their concerns to the people who will be providing solutions. So I'll start with with Lawton Pearson, who's one of our state's largest peach farmers. He's located in Fort Valley. And this has been a very bad year for peaches because we had a freeze when the peach trees were blooming and so the, it looks like the crop, the peach crop's gonna be very poor in 2023. One of Lawton's biggest problems is that he has contracts with big supermarket companies, and he has to fulfill that contract. And that contract is written well in advance. Well, he can't always tell early in the growing season, what his peach yield is going to be. So he wants us to be able to develop some kind of predictive program for him that says, okay, I want to look at my flowers, or I'm going to look at the fruit set. And I'm going to be able to predict based on environmental conditions, how many pounds of peaches I'm able to produce this year, so that I know that when I sign my contract with the supermarket company, I can meet that contract, I don't extend myself or under predict what I'm going to have. So this is a solution that's waiting for artificial intelligence and remote sensing and drones, to be able to collect data and make some kind of predictive solution. We have one of our biggest vegetable growers, Mr. Bill Brim, who's based here in Tifton. One of his great problems is labor shortages. You know, he can't get the labor force to harvest his vegetables and send them to market. Can we produce robotic solutions that harvest supermarket-ready vegetables, so not processing tomatoes, but tomatoes that are handpicked these days, and go on the supermarket shelf without bruising? Can we produce robotic solutions, so that he can harvest his product without relying on a workforce that may or may not show up because there's such a shortage for it. So these are the kinds of things that we hope will get UGA teams built to address these specific problems for our growers. And these solutions are not just specific to Georgia, they will be adaptable all across the country. And then we can produce some kind of technological solutions, but ultimately, we need commercialization for this to be viable for the growers to use. So hopefully this will entice companies to come to Georgia to work with us to produce these solutions.

Jordan Powers: 7:02

So we know that at the conference, researchers and growers are collaborating together to come up with innovative solutions. And we heard there'll be a chance for students to develop solutions to problems as well. Can you tell us a little bit more about the student hackathon portion of the conference?

George Vellidis: 7:13

The student hackathon was a concept that was brought to us by our colleagues in in computer science, who are also on the planning committee for the IIPA conference. And the idea behind the student hackathon was to have teams of graduate students and even undergraduates, give them problems that are cutting edge that our growers need solutions for and see if they can come up with some really innovative solutions. So for example, one of the companies who's helping us with these problems is owned by a UGA Double Dawg. And he's developing a company that will allow nursery growers and people who have orchards to be able to predict the size of their trees, so that they can better have inventory and know when somebody says, hey, I want 1000 trees of this size, yes, I've got these trees without having to go out and count. So we're providing the students with aerial images of nurseries and orchards. And saying, okay, we want you to figure out how to count the size of these trees. And so that's the hackathon, they'll come up with solutions. And potentially one of the solutions will be adopted by the business. And then, you know, the students will have some access to the intellectual property and so on. So it's really exciting and at the moment, I think we've got almost 30 students have signed up for the hackathon. And it's being organized by Dr. Jin Sun who's in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Jordan Powers: 8:46

Sounds like a very action based meeting, which I feel like we need more of these days, like immediate takeaways and hearing about teams forming and true action being taken away sounds really exciting and inspiring.

Emily Davenport: 8:58

Aside from the networking and collaborations taking place at the conference, what sort of hands on activities will be available for attendees?

Simer Virk: 9:05

Yeah, so I think as a part of the conference, on the second day, we have three or four events in the afternoon, right? And one of those events is spray drone workshop. And I think it's pretty timely, because spray drones are something very new. We have had drones for a while in ag where we just have cameras on there. And it was primarily a lot used for research, all that, but also some for scouting by consultants and all that. We didn't see that much adoption by growers and all that, again, because it's good to take pictures, but it's hard to interpret those and add value to what they're doing as a crop management, which there's still a lot of research going on. But there is this very increased interest in spray drones because now you have a tool that can actually spray, right? So I was like again, little intrigued by all the questions and the calls we got last year about, you know, how there's so many people interested in it. And there's so much evolving within the same year, because you have one model at the start of the year where the company launched it, and people started using it. And by the end of the year, they're already gone to a next and all that. Plus, or with spray drones, it's not just someone can just go by to Best Buy or Lowe's or somewhere and just get one, right? But the other big thing is the regulations, you know, and especially being with UGA and the Extension, all that, one thing we try to do is make sure that everybody is considering the regulations, proper rules and everything to fly them because even though if they're flying at 10 feet, they're still in the airspace, right? So I think one of our goals here is to share some practical application considerations of drones. One of the things we talked about yesterday is like how I said they were kind of meant for spot spraying applications, but people start taking it and start spraying the whole field, right, and that were like, oh, it don't have enough battery life, it don't have enough tank. Well guess what? They were not made to spray large fields, right? So it's like some of the practicality or application considerations. Because myself here, we got a colleague from Auburn, Dr. Steve Li, he's a weed scientist, but also does a lot of spray drone work. He's got a lot of actual on-farm efficacy style data. What you saw today was we were doing lot with water on the spray performance side. So he's gonna share a lot of like, from pesticide application. He's also a lot more involved with the EPA and other regulatory agencies. And we also have industry partners, or people who have been working with or who kind of take, who kind of knows that how we need to make this technology more accessible and used right and properly in ag, right? So we'll have Mark from Application Insight coming. But our goal is to share some of the rules and regulations, practical applications considerations for, and also maybe touch a little bit on where we're going with the spray drones. And then it's going to followed by a drone demonstration outside with one of our industry partners.

George Vellidis: 12:05

Well, I'd like to add that I think the spray drones are a super exciting development and will really push for this idea of automation that Simer mentioned earlier. So think back to the example I was talking about with the Vidalia onions.

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Emily Davenport: 12:20

If you'd like to learn more about integrative precision agriculture and Georgia's upcoming research on Vidalia onions, listen in to our full length episode about IPA, the science, not the beer. We'll link it in the show notes for you.

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George Vellidis: 12:32

So we'll have this little robot that can go out and sense diseases, right? Well, the future is that the robot will speak directly to the spray drone and say, okay, these are the coordinates. This is the area that I want you to spray. Somebody has to fill up the little tank on the spray drone, but it takes off and it goes and does the mission on its own. And it's all controlled by one person sitting in an office somewhere, right? I mean, imagine the savings in labor, efficiency, and quality of product at the end. So it's a very exciting development and I think that's why when we look at our registration for these post conference events, about half of our attendees have signed up for the spray drone workshop. Also, another event that we have that's really interesting is Dr. Gerald Henry, who's in the Crop and Soil Sciences Department, has a very interesting precision turf research program. And he focuses on working with our athletics program to develop turf that minimizes injuries to athletes. So conference attendees will have a chance to visit his research. And he's arranged, because of his close interaction with the athletic department, to, so the attendees can also visit the stadium, which at that time will be undergoing refurbishment of the turf so they'll be able to see this in action.

Emily Davenport: 13:47

Okay, and is it the turf that he's working on is in Sanford stadium or..?

George Vellidis: 13:52

Yes.

Emily Davenport: 13:52

Okay.

George Vellidis: 13:52

Yeah.

Emily Davenport: 13:53

That's really cool.

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Jordan Powers: 13:56

Thanks for listening to this minisode about the integrative precision agriculture conference. To learn more about the conference and the Institute head to the link in the show notes. We'll also add a link to our full length episode with George and Simer, where we go in depth about all things IPA.

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Emily Davenport: 14:12

Thanks for listening to Cultivating Curiosity, a podcast produced by the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. A special thanks to Mason McClintock for our music and sound effects. Find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts.