Cornell—and Grapes—Chosen for Specialty Crop Focus for NASA Acres
By Mike Hibbard for Cornell AgriTech
For more than 50 years, NASA and partner agencies have used satellite imagery to map agriculture worldwide with an eye toward global supply and food security. That technology, however, has largely focused on commodity and row crops. But with the recent launch of a new consortium, dubbed NASA Acres, the focus will shift to U.S. agriculture, including specialty crops—grapes and apples in particular.
The $15 million NASA Acres project builds on the success of NASA Harvest, a globally focused consortium based at the University of Maryland. Alyssa Whitcraft, associate research professor at Maryland and co-founder of NASA Harvest, is director of NASA Acres, which stands for “A Climate Resilient Ecosystem Approach to Strengthening U.S. Agriculture.” Cornell’s Katie Gold, assistant professor of grape pathology, and Yu Jiang, assistant professor of horticulture, will play a lead role in the project, using grape (and later, apple) as a model system for the dispersal and distribution of pathogens and pests, including spotted lanternfly, as key threats to crop security.
“NASA Acres selected Katie Gold’s project because she and her lab are vanguards for expanding the value of satellite data for specialty crops and for pest and disease early warning and action,” Alyssa said. “It is our hope that success demonstrated for grapes and apples—which are two of the highest value specialty crops in the nation and merit their own focus—will also provide a model for pest and disease early detection and management in other agricultural systems.”
Katie and Yu will leverage remote sensing, robots and artificial intelligence to help growers detect diseases in specialty crops. “Our goal is to provide growers with accurate, data-driven risk assessments made from remote sensing data so they can more strategically deploy ground resources—such as human scouts and diagnostics—to improve early disease detection,” Katie explained. Plus, she added, the project will allow her and Yu to take detection one step further by building more actionable systems for specialty crop growers.
“Integrating NASA satellite sensing with AI systems will enable strategic deployment and adaptation of ground robots and smart sensing networks, enhancing automation and precision in specialty crop production. This will promote a sustainable, equitable and resilient agri-food supply chain,” said Yu.
Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and Cornell AgriTech received a $1.4 million grant as part of the project. Other members of the consortium include the University of Illinois, Arizona State University, Stanford University, North Carolina State University, University of California-Merced and Michigan State University.
The National Grape Research Alliance is a NASA Acres consortium partner. Donnell Brown, NGRA president, believes Cornell’s work in NASA Acres could revolutionize the industry. “Katie Gold and Yu Jiang are two of the most aspiring scientists in digital viticulture research in the U.S. today, and we’re thrilled that they were selected to lead the NASA Acres consortium, using grape as a model system,” she said. “The combination of Katie’s research into impressively accurate maps of pre-symptomatic and/or early-stage grapevine viral disease using aerial hyperspectral sensing and Yu’s efforts to deploy robots, sensors and AI to monitor and predict its spread promise a kind of space-age surveillance system for grape growers seeking to combat disease—not only before it can be seen but before it even arrives. This is a model of sustainability that virtually removes disease from the equation.”
Mike Hibbard is a freelance writer for Cornell AgriTech.
This article is adapted from the original, titled “Bringing NASA Technology ‘Down to Earth’ for Agriculture,” published May 1, 2023, on the Cornell CALS website. Click to read the full story.