Later stages of the research will be conducted at J.R. Simplot's Idaho Processing Facility in Aberdeen, Idaho, where full-scale test units will be installed. Crops with more than a 5 percent blight infection rate are considered in danger and should not be placed in long-term storage. While current storage facility control systems can monitor humidity and temperature as well as provide a continuous supply of air, these systems fail to monitor the health of the crop in storage.
Farmers often resort to their senses and simple thermometers to determine status of the crop.
Currently, manual inspection of the pile of tubers provides the grower with the best indication of crop condition. Improved monitoring techniques will allow growers and processors to use proactive counter measures to save more products for delivery after storage. The latest USDA grant is an important step in the broad-scale commercialization of our technology,'' said Insightek President Fred Templeton. I research demonstrated the technology concept behind its service, in which advanced sensors are installed and linked to a host PC via a wireless communications system. These sensors are programmed to detect and evaluate chemical by-products of disease and decay in potatoes.