Sergiy Shemet
| Organization type | University |
|---|---|
| Country | Ukraine |
This member participated in the following Forums
Forum Communication for Development, community media and ICTs for family farming and rural development
Question 2 (opens 24 September)
Dear Colleagues,
We would like to draw you attention to 2 practical aspects of ICT potential in rural development.
First, this is use of ICT tools for remote analytical techniques. We described this in details in our previous report
http://www.e-agriculture.org/es/comment/12918#comment-12918
Modern devices, being rather cheap, incorporate some sensors which could be incorporated for some analytical measurements. Besides our previous reports on remote plant stress, during last year we confirmed efficiency of this approach for assessment heavy metals in plant material.
Second, ICT technologies were demonstrated as efficient tool facilitating information fluxes in rural education programs. In Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine, a pilot project was launched. All school buses were equipped with GPS loggers, which signals were gathered in centralized system using GSM technology and Internet. This dramatically improved logistics of school buses usage. Moreover, this provided information on location of pupils at any time of working day, which is especially important for their families given the fact that in rural areas school can be remote from the home for many kilometers. GPS location enables both parents and regional administration with the exact information on the location of any school bus. Besides effective monitoring and improved logistics, this enabled considerable fuel economy, allowing optimizing daily bus rout. And lastly, this provides additional safety for children, especially in difficult weather conditions, providing emergency call facility in a case of any unforeseen circumstances.
Overall, such implementation of ICT system enabled substantial optimization of rural educational program at the regional level.
We would appreciate any discussion on this promising use of ICT for rural development.
S.A. Shemet, V.S. Dudnyk, V.S. Fedenko, M.S. Dzigovskyi
Dnipropetrovsk National University
Dnipropetrovsk Regional Institute for Continuing Education
Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine
Forum e-Agriculture: looking back and moving forward
Question 1 (opens 25 Nov.) What are the main achievements in the area of ICT for agriculture and rural development...
Thank you for your interest in this topic. First attempts to practical use of digital image processing for this purposes are dated back to 1980-s (R. I. Olson et al. An inexpensive flow cytometer for the analysis of fluorescence signals in phytoplankton: chlorophyll and DNA distributions, J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol., 1983, 68, 129-144) and resulted in clear algorithms appropriate for practical use in agriculture (R.L. Rorie et al. The assessment of leaf nitrogen in corn from digital images, Crop Sci. 51:2174–2180 (2011); S. Kawashima, and M. Nakatani. An algorithm for estimating chlorophyll content in leaves using a video camera. 1998. Ann. Bot. 81: 49-54). One of the most recent works - M. Vaher et al. Automatic spot preparation and image processing of paper microzone-based assays for analysis of bioactive compounds in plant extracts. Food Chem. 2014. 143. 465–471.
Mobile phone now can also be considered as analytical instrument – (not kidding: A. García et al. Mobile phone platform as portable chemical analyzer. Sensors and Actuators B 156 (2011) 350–359). Published algorithms can be easily implemented by average programmer and lab analyst.
So these technologies are just in one step from being implemented in market devices. But I guess if manufacturers will be interested in production of such devices due to low costs. Thus, chlorophyll meter costs approx. 1500$, while you can have almost the same results (slightly less precise) for no additional value, if you have digital camera in your phone plus some “Do-It-Yourself” skills.
By the way, chlorophyll measurements are of special interest as they allow to estimate N content (available to plant) for monitoring and operative adjustment of nitrogen fertilizer use, that is limiting factor for plant biomass in many agricultural conditions.
Hope listed references are useful fo further discussion.
We suggest to discuss potential of ICT in analytical procedures in agriculture. To date this question had not received much attention.
The basis of ICT using in analytical tests for modern agricultural and environmental technologies is founded by following facts.
First, most of cell phones are equipped with digital still camera (DSC). Costs of such cameras are substantially decreasing with time, while their quality is increasing. In many recent works performance of cell phone DSC was demonstrated to be sufficient for several analytical methods for colorimetric determination of many metabolites, nutrient compounds and environmental contaminants. Most of these methods initially were developed for telemedicine in regions with poor resources and demonstrated their effectiveness.
Second, effectiveness of such methods is synergically increased when they are combined with green analytical chemistry (GAC) approach. This modern approach is based on less consumption of analytical reagents due to investigation the substances immobilized on solid media, usually on paper, thus increasing the sensitivity of determination. This decreases volumes of reagents (“Green”) and subsequently the costs of analysis. GAC approach can be easily combined with colorimetry by digital analysis of spots images obtained with DSC.
Third, digital images can be obtained in the field and transferred to laboratory by means of ICT for detailed analysis. Also results can be quickly delivered back to the remote site of sampling, thus providing effective feedback, possibly with several interactions. Images can be transferred via Internet if available from provider, or even via MMS service.
We used colorimetry approach as quantitative measurement of color stimulus for determination of the range of physiological and ecological parameters of agricultural plants. Our result demonstrated effectiveness of determination of natural pigments (phenolic compounds and carotenoids) in different plant specimens both in vivo and in vitro, indicators of plant stress caused by heavy metals and herbicides, accumulation of Ni, Pb, Cd in plant tissue.
Thus, digital image analysis combined with “green” analytical methods and ICT technologies should be considered as effective analytical approaches for lots of environmental and agricultural applications.
Sergiy Shemet, Volodimir Fedenko
Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Molecular Biology,
Dnipropetrovsk National University, Ukraine