SBIR-STTR Award

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to accelerate the transition from chemical pesticides to non-chemical alternatives by providing farmers with a sustainable, long-term solution for managing plant diseases (e.g., fungus), while reducing agricultural impacts on human health and the environment. Organic farms lack effective fungicide treatment methods resulting in high labor costs and increased risk of yield loss. This project will develop a system for using ultraviolet light as an efficient and effective alternative for chemical treatments, by providing farmers with a healthier and more environmentally-conscious method for treating crops. The solution may eliminate chemical applications, reduce labor requirements, and increase profitability for farmers. Additionally, technologies developed as part of this project will minimize human exposure to chemical fungicides and greatly reduce the ecological damage caused by existing agricultural treatment practices. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to understand how environmental and physical variabilities affect dosing of ultraviolet light in open-field strawberry production. Ultraviolet light has been shown to effectively treat pathogens including gray mold, for which there is no organically accepted treatment other than picking by hand. Ultraviolet light can be used as a non-chemical alternative for treating pathogens but is not commercially feasible due to environmental and physical variabilities that affect treatment dosing. Excessive dosing damages plants and reduces yield, while insufficient dosing is ineffective. This project will advance agricultural best practices by developing the equipment and predictive software necessary for reliably applying ultraviolet treatment on commercial farms. The project team will establish an experimental process for measuring multi-dimensional irradiance profiles as a function of physical and environmental factors, then use empirical data to establish functional relationships between variables and irradiance. Using real-time sensor feedback, the treatment system can automatically modulate exposure time and achieve desirable treatment dosing in open fields. By developing the ability of maintaining ultraviolet treatment dosages, food can be grown reliably without dangerous and costly chemical applications. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project seeks to accelerate the transition from chemical pesticides to non-chemical alternatives by providing farmers with a sustainable, long-term solution for managing pests, while reducing agricultural impacts on human health and the environment. Today, strawberry farmers are reliant on chemical pesticides, spending $2,500/acre on over 60,000 acres/year to support the $3.6 billion U.S. strawberry industry. Organic farms, representing 10% of the industry, lack effective treatment methods resulting in high labor costs and increased risk of yield loss. This project seeks to develop a system for using ultraviolet light as an efficient and equally effective alternative for chemical pesticides, disrupting the pesticide manufacturing industry by providing farmers with a healthier and more environmentally conscious method for treating crops. The solution may eliminate uncertainty associated with chemical applications, reduce labor requirements, and increase profitability for farmers. Additionally, technologies developed as part of this project will minimize human exposure to chemical pesticides and reduce the ecological damage caused by existing agricultural treatment practices.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project seeks to further develop a novel, non-chemical treatment system for commercialization of agricultural pest control. This system will provide a cost competitive alternative to chemical pesticides, a global $84 billion market. Existing pest controls are ineffective due to insect resistance, cause uncertainty, and result in reduced yield and profitability. This project?s objective is to create a reliable, non-chemical treatment alternative that uses ultraviolet (UV-C) light to control multiple pests effectively and sustainably. The project team will build a UV-C treatment device with a dosing control algorithm for achieving reliable pest control in minimum treatment time. This dosing controller will use novel volumetric irradiance profiles to characterize the effectiveness of a treatment and adjust treatment time and/or distance to account for field uncertainties. The goal of this research is be a commercial UV-C treatment system integrated into an automated pest control system.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.