UC Davis researchers, led by Steve Fennimore, are studying robots that reduce hand-weeding costs and use steam to combat soil pathogens, improving lettuce yields and reducing chemical herbicide use in the process.
Troy Magney, Dept. of Plant Sciences, is using methods such as hyperspectral imaging – a remote sensing technique – to measure plant water stress, nutrient status, biomass, and photosynthesis in order to make informed decisions about water and fertilizer management. This is important for global agriculture in the future.
Troy Magney, a new assistant professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, works in the area of remote sensing and plant and environmental informatics. He most recently worked in the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab at Caltech.
Cooling vegetables just after harvest prolongs shelf life and maintains quality. Most California vegetables are precooled before shipment using Cold air, Cold water, Ice, and/or Vacuum. Several of these were developed at UC Davis in the 1970s and 1980s in Plant Sciences, and in Biological and Agricultural Engineering.
These interdisciplinary projects help develop new partnerships, long-term collaborations, and opportunities to advance the health for people, animals, and the planet.
Small growers can build their own farm-scale coolers at a fraction of the cost of conventional units, thanks to the invention of a device that adjusts air conditioners to drop the temperature all the way down to refrigeration levels.
