Cornell Atkinson awards drive progress in tech, ag, sustainability
Source: HD.com
Cornell Atkinson awards drive progress in tech, ag, sustainability Over the last 20 years as the climate has warmed, extreme wildfires have doubled in frequency, carrying air pollution and smog across continents. Now, Cornell researchers are investigating whether wildfire smoke may also be carrying chronic wasting disease.
Current disease surveillance methods remain labor-intensive and reactive, limiting the resilience of high-value specialty crop production. © Lirong Xiang Cornell researchers stand with an autonomous biosecurity system in a tomato greenhouse.
With support from a 2026 Academic Venture Fund, they will develop robotic and diagnostic technologies to improve early detection of plant diseases and strengthen climate-resilient greenhouse agriculture. Investigators: Lirong Xiang, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering, Dominique Holtappels, the Susan Eckert Lynch Assistant Professor of plant pathology and plant-microbe biology in SIPS, Neil Mattson, professor of horticulture in SIPS, and Allan Pinto, postdoctoral research economist with Cornell Integrated Pest Management, all in CALS.
Why this matters: For operators, this is a water-management story. The useful signal is that direct substrate measurements can help cut drain loss materially without giving up yield or fruit quality, which is exactly the kind of controllable efficiency gain a facility can build on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does substrate sensing matter in free-drain strawberry systems?
Because drain percentage tells a grower what already happened, while substrate moisture and EC data show root-zone conditions directly. That makes it easier to cut water loss without guessing.
What is the operator takeaway from this trial?
If the thresholds are understood well enough, growers can reduce drain water materially while protecting yield and fruit quality, which makes sensing an operational tool instead of a reporting tool.
