The U.S. micropropagation industry is a $24 million business supplying starter plant material to greenhouses around the world. However, in order to compete with the increasing number of offshore laboratories, U.S. micropropagators must produce higher quality plants more efficiently. The goal of this project is to develop automatic grading technology that will reduce production costs. improve quality, and provide a key component for expansion into the $792 million market for agricultural and forestry starter plants. Specifically, machine vision and mass based measurements of unrooted microcuttings. the primary product from a tissue culture laboratory? will be used to grade microcuttings into groups which will mature more predictably and uniformly in the greenhouse. Phase I will concentrate on two issues critical to the success of automated grading. First, the capability to automatically predict grow out responses of stage 2, unrooted microcuttings will be developed, and second, the economic feasibility of this technology will be established. Phase II will build upon the results of Phase I by developing a grading system for testing and evaluation in a commercial, production environment. A consortium of micropropagation laboratories will be established to fund Phase III which will complete the commercialization of this technology.Applications:This research has the potential to significantly improve plant uniformity and grow out predictability while reducing laboratory and greenhouse labor requirements. These benefits will provide a unique marketing advantage for U.S. micropropagators, opening a window of opportunity to re-capture market share from offshore producers through quality improvements and lowered production costs. A one year, one percent shift in market share would be sufficient to offset the total USDA outlay for this project. The elimination of a critical production bottle neck will have even greater economic benefits as commercial tissue culture expands into agricultural and forestry markets.
