Take home messages

• New AgTech platforms have been deployed in strategic monitoring networks within GRDC’s West, South and North regions to monitor important airborne foliar pathogens.
• This GRDC-funded initiative has co-located SARDI’s new Plant Health Surveillance Sentinel units with BioScout SporeScout devices to demonstrate new technology capabilities in surveillance to assist in management of diseases in grain crops.
• Data from these surveillance systems are freely available to growers during the life of this 2-year project and we encourage growers/agronomists to access and engage with these outputs that can assist with their decision making.

The disease problem

Australia's grain crops face substantial yearly losses due to diseases. The FAO (2019) estimates that plant diseases are responsible for 20–40% of crop losses on average, costing the global economy US$220 billion annually. In Australia, Murray and Brennan (2009) estimated that foliar fungal infections cost the grains industry over AU$470 million annually, despite spending around AU$84.3 million on fungicides, and these numbers are now likely much higher. Addressing these losses can boost profitability by protecting yield while promoting sustainable practices.

New technologies (shown in Figure 1) are now providing the capability to detect airborne pathogens as they spread, before the disease is symptomatic in their host crops. Spores of disease-causing fungi move with wind and are largely invisible yet are critical in the early establishment of epidemics. Knowing when pathogens are dispersed into fields or growing regions can give precise information for fungicide application decisions. This is particularly useful in combination with linked climate data and informs growers’ disease management decision matrices.

Figure 1. SARDI Plant Health Surveillance Sentinel 7 (left) and a BioScout SporeScout unit (right) located at Frances (SA) in collaboration with Adam Hancock (Elders Naracoorte). Each unit is powered by solar/battery systems and monitor weather conditions linked to automated daily sampling for analysis of airborne pathogens.

BioScout technology

BioScout's advanced automated SporeScout system aims to address these issues by monitoring airborne disease-causing fungi in near real-time, providing data-based insights for sustainable and profitable production. SporeScout units photograph microscopic airborne particulates, analyse that imagery to identify and quantify fungal spores of interest and scale this process through machine learning. Data from the SporeScout units are displayed on BioScout’s online dashboard, with output graphics and timeline graphs showing the airborne spore concentrations of several pathogens of interest, which are updated daily (Figure 2).

Demonstration networks of BioScout SporeScout devices have been installed across Australia in 2024. Two districts were chosen for South Australia, the Mid-North and the South-East, where 10 units have been deployed in each district. These will offer near real-time data on the presence and concentration of five airborne fungal pathogens threatening grain crops, comprising of:

• general rust (Puccinia spp.)
• blackleg (Leptosphaeria maculans)
• general Alternaria (Alternaria spp.)
• powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis)
• Botrytis (Botrytis cinerea).

Additional pathogen targets, currently under development, plan to be added for the 2025 season.

To access the BioScout SporeScout network, please register your interest online at BioScout to be granted user access via return email, to their dashboard.

Figure 2. A screenshot of the BioScout dashboard, displaying airborne concentrations using image analysis of five pathogens, using the SporeScouts located at Frances (SA). A ‘traffic light’ system (green boxes) at the top provides an approximate indication of the quantity of spores in the air. Weather data graphics and location maps are also visualised.

To access the SARDI Plant Health Surveillance system, go to the Plant Health Surveillance Dashboard and select the Sentinel deployment of interest.

Figure 3. Screenshot of SARDI’s Plant Health Surveillance dashboard, displaying Sentinel deployments in SA, WA and NSW. Selecting a sentinel tile displays climate data and timeline graphs of ten major pathogens being monitored using DNA-based analysis of Sentinel samples by SARDI’s Molecular Diagnostics Centre. Inset shows example of data for Botrytis and Blackleg in Frances.

Conclusions

• Data from these two surveillance systems are freely available to growers during this 2-year GRDC-funded initiative.
• We encourage growers/agronomists to access these data and contact us with comments or questions.
• Similar networks and reporting mechanisms are also deployed in WA and NSW to demonstrate the technology in each GRDC region.

Acknowledgements

The research undertaken as part of this project is made possible by the significant contributions of growers through both trial cooperation and the support of the GRDC, the authors would like to thank them for their continued support. The authors particularly acknowledge Adam Hancock (Elders Naracoorte) in establishing the South-East network. The authors also thank site collaborators in the Mid North High Rainfall Zone trial network and Hart Trial Site network in SA, and interstate collaborations with DPIRD and NSW DPI. SARDI also acknowledges technology partner Data Effects.

References

FAO 2019. New standards to curb the global spread of plant pests and diseases

Murray GM, Brennan JP (2009) Estimating disease losses to the Australian wheat industry. Australasian Plant Pathology 38, 558–570.

Contact details

Rohan Kimber
SARDI Plant Health and Diagnostics
0401 122 140
rohan.kimber@sa.gov.au

Michelle Demers
BioScout Pty Ltd
michelle@bioscout.com.au

Megan Deveson
BioScout Pty Ltd
megan@bioscout.com.au