Each year, plant viruses and fungal attacks lead to crop losses of up to 30 percent. That is why it is important to detect plant disease early on. Yet laboratory tests are expensive and often time-consuming. Researchers are now developing a low-cost quick test for use on site.
The farmer casts a worried gaze at his potato field: where only recently a lush green field of plants was growing, much of the foliage has now turned brown -- presumably the result of a fungal disease. Usually, by the time the disease becomes visible, it is already too late. The course of the disease is then so advanced that there is little the farmer can do to counteract the damage done. To determine early on whether and how severely his plants are diseased, he would have to submit samples to a laboratory on a regular basis. There, researchers usually employ the ELISA method, a conventional detection method based on an antibody-antigen reaction. "These tests are expensive, though. It also takes up to two weeks before the farmer has the results of the tests. And by then, the disease has usually spread out across the entire field," explains Dr. Florian Schröper of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME in Aachen, Germany.
Early detection of plant disease. (Credit: Image courtesy of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft)
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Bron: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1007102920.htm
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Wist niet waar ik deze precies moest posten maar dit is misschien wel handig om te weten dat je hier binnenkort misschien wel gebruik van kan maken.
Grtz-
Fleuv
The farmer casts a worried gaze at his potato field: where only recently a lush green field of plants was growing, much of the foliage has now turned brown -- presumably the result of a fungal disease. Usually, by the time the disease becomes visible, it is already too late. The course of the disease is then so advanced that there is little the farmer can do to counteract the damage done. To determine early on whether and how severely his plants are diseased, he would have to submit samples to a laboratory on a regular basis. There, researchers usually employ the ELISA method, a conventional detection method based on an antibody-antigen reaction. "These tests are expensive, though. It also takes up to two weeks before the farmer has the results of the tests. And by then, the disease has usually spread out across the entire field," explains Dr. Florian Schröper of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME in Aachen, Germany.
Early detection of plant disease. (Credit: Image courtesy of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft)
....
Bron: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1007102920.htm
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Wist niet waar ik deze precies moest posten maar dit is misschien wel handig om te weten dat je hier binnenkort misschien wel gebruik van kan maken.
Grtz-
Fleuv
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