FFAR Research to Protect Vegetable Crops from Invasive Pest 

Damage caused by Thrips parvispinus, an invasive insect, is costing vegetable and ornamental plant producers millions of dollars. University of Florida researchers are evaluating pesticide efficacy in controlling the insect.

Protecting Vegetable Crops from Invasive Pests 

Japanese Encephalitis Virus Program Awards 

A Novel Cell-Surface-Receptor Strategy for Mitigating Mycotoxins 

Corn is one of the most consumed crops globally; however, crop diseases are a major threat to yield. A danger associated with corn consumption is mycotoxins - chemicals produced by certain fungi that grow within the corn plant that cause illness and death in humans and animals. 2Blades is using new genetic tools to develop corn that has strong, long-lasting resistance to these fungi

A multiplexed chemical sensor system to automate non-invasive, in-ovo sex determination for the poultry industry 

Commercially, chicks can only be sexed after they hatch, requiring producers to devote time and resources to incubating male chicks, only to cull them. Yearly, over six billion male layer chicks are culled when hatched because there is no commercial use for them. This research team is continuing development of an innovative microchip-based chemical sensor that captures volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from individual eggs as early as eight days into incubation. Machine learning can interpret the VOCs to classify eggs by gender. This research is supporting the integration of microchip sensors with a custom automated egg handling machine that sorts the sexed eggs.

High-throughput in-ovo sexing of chicken eggs using hyperspectral imaging & Raman spectroscopy 

Commercially, chicks can only be sexed after they hatch, requiring producers to devote time and resources to incubating male chicks, only to cull them. This research team is using molecular imaging technology to develop a commercially applicable optical technique for sexing hatching eggs by extracting and analyzing small droplets of the embryos’ fluid at the eighth day of incubation.

Project Ella 

Commercially, chicks can only be sexed after they hatch, requiring producers to devote time and resources to incubating male chicks, only to cull them. This research is further developing and scaling in-ovo sexing technology that measures a naturally occurring biomarker within the embryos’ waste fluid. This fluid differs between the sexes, allowing sorting the eggs by sex on the ninth day of development with high accuracy.