You had a problem in your field or yard. So you sent a sample to
the University of
Georgia plant disease diagnostic clinics. And then you waited.
It’s hard to wait while your wilted plant or bagged bug finds
its way through the mail.
But you and other Georgia farmers and home gardeners, who have
submitted more than
4,000 samples each year, haven’t had much choice.
That will soon change.
A private foundation’s gift of more than $1 million and matching
funds will place
digital imaging equipment in 60 county Extension Service offices
by 1999.
The three-year project will equip the counties with high-
resolution digital cameras,
microscopes and computers with imaging and communication
software.
About half of the counties will get equipment and training in
March 1998. The rest will
be selected and equipped a year later. When the system is
complete, the equipment will
be spread evenly throughout the state.
“The technology will allow county agents to photograph diseased
and pest-infested
crops and transmit visual diagnostic data to plant pathologists
and other scientists at
UGA,” said Ed Brown, a plant pathologist with the UGA College of
Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences. “This technology will apply to more than
60 percent of the
plant samples they’ve traditionally mailed.”
It takes about four days to deliver samples and return the
results by mail. The new
system should cut that time in half. Sometimes the diagnosis
will be immediate.
McDuffie County will be among the offices equipped next March.
And Frank Watson,
the county extension coordinator, can’t wait.
“It seems like at least once a week, I’ll get something in here
with such vivid symptoms
that I say, ‘If I could just show this to the specialists, I
know they could tell me what it
is and I could help these people,’” Watson said. “With this
equipment, we’ll be able to
send them a picture instantly. And they can respond on the same
day.”
Crop diseases cost Georgia farmers more than $525 million in
1995. That’s 17 percent
of the $3 billion total crop value.
“We know that in ’95, distance diagnostics could have saved
Vidalia onion farmers
alone $30 million in crop losses and control measures,” Brown
said. “The system will
save Georgia farmers millions of dollars a year.”
The equipment has been chosen to be generic and fairly low-cost
to make this an easily
reproducible project, said Don Hamilton, head of computing and
networking for the
UGA Extension Service. He and Brown head the project.
Each county package is valued at around $10,000. Each includes a
compound
microscope for high magnification to identify fungi and
diseases. A stereo microscope
for lower magnification will identify insects and other
diseases.
County agents will use a camera that fits on either of the
microscopes and a hand-held
digital camera in the field or yard. They’ll transfer images
with a computer with
Internet access.
The agents will be trained on the new technology. They will also
get extensive training
on identifying and diagnosing pest and disease problems.
“As we build up a data base of images and the agents become more
familiar with
common problems, we should be able to have more identification
on the spot,” Brown
said.
“Agents will be trained to make mounts from sample materials,
photograph them and
send the file on the Internet to the UGA diagnostic labs,” he
said. “We’ll be alerted
that a sample is waiting. One plant pathologist will look at it
and, if necessary, call in
experts in any field to take a look.”
The best images will become part of an electronic data base.
Agents, scientists and
students can use the data base for quick identification.
