Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grants

Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites produced by fungi that are harmful to human and animal health. These compounds may contaminate foods and feeds, either in the field or postharvest, creating a major food safety risk. The FAO has estimated that 25% of the world’s crops are affected by mycotoxins each year, with losses of ~1 billion tons of food products annually. In the southeastern U.S., contamination with mycotoxins (including but not limited to aflatoxin) continues to be a major threat to foods and feeds, and climate change along with the increased focus on consumer health and low mycotoxin thresholds will exacerbate the mycotoxin problem in the future. In peanut alone, the industry-wide loss to aflatoxin in Georgia in 2019 was estimated at 24%, and the U.S. is at risk of losing the European peanut export market due to stringent aflatoxin thresholds. This Seed Grant project will build much needed capacity and leadership for aflatoxin research and mitigation at UGA by: 1) assembling and nurturing an interdisciplinary team of researchers, Extension professionals, and graduate students from three UGA colleges to address the aflatoxin problem in peanut; 2) developing a remote-sensing-based approach for in-field aflatoxin hotspot prediction and management so that producers may segregate peanuts from these hotspots during harvest to ensure the overall crop is not contaminated; 3) evaluating a deep learning-assisted hyperspectral fluorescence imaging system for postharvest aflatoxin detection at the shelling plant so that contaminated peanut loads may be identified and segregated rapidly and reliably; and 4) submitting competitive grant proposals to external funding programs based on the teambuilding efforts and proof-of-concept research conducted as part of the Seed Grant project. This proposal addresses two themes from the 2019 report of the Provost’s Task Force on Academic Excellence (Integrative Precision Agriculture, Addressing Rural Challenges) and one additional theme highlighted in the Seed Grant RFA (Leveraging Advances in Data Science and AI).

Team Lead

Harald Scherm
Department of Plant Pathology
scherm@uga.edu

Team Members

Thirimachos Bourlai
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Jaime Camelio
School of Environmental, Civil, Agricultural, and Mechanical Engineering

Robert Kemerait
Department of Plant Pathology

Changying Li
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Alicia Peduzzil
Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources

Cristiane Pilon
Department of Crop and Soil Sciences

Glen Rains
Department of Entomology

George Vellidis
Department of Crop and Soil Sciences