Page 7 - Impact - Winter 2021

BIG DATA
What do farmers, researchers, companies, NGOs, government agencies and others need in common to succeed in their agricultural endeavors? Data.
As we’ve seen during COVID-19, the resiliency of our agricultural and food systems is more important than ever. Data is a key driver in creating a healthy, sustainable world. Building for the future requires innovation and collaboration in how we digitize and use data for everyone’s benefit.
During ‘Unlocking the Agricultural Data Revolution,’ a virtual event
recently convened by the U of M and partners, experts delved into myriad topics, including ‘collaborating and creating with farmers,’ and ‘improving sustainable ag production with data.’
“Digital is the next step in the natural evolution of agriculture,” said Kevin Silverstein of the GEMS Agro Informatics Initiative and Minnesota Supercomputing Institute, explaining that gathering data is the easy part. The hard part is bringing it together so it can be analyzed, shared and used.
“Ag data has a variety of different forms, formats, implications and
meanings,” said Silverstein. “We share a vision of having an interconnected system where we can advance the field.”
Agricultural data is gathered on farms across North America to monitor soil health, water quality, growth rates and more. While much information is collected, there’s great need to make the data usable.
“Farmers are overwhelmed by so much data,” said Ali Joglekar of the GEMS Agro Informatics Initiative. “If we can create ways to move data more easily between systems, farmers [and others] can use it to improve productivity, the environment, nutrition and food security.”
A leader in getting disparate pieces of ag data to talk to each other in usable ways, the GEMS platform facilitates data-sharing across public and private spaces, with rigorous protocols to maintain data privacy and integrity.
Busting rust, boosting food security
Wheat, an essential grain, is consumed globally by 2.5 billion people, and in Minnesota alone, farmers grow about 1.5 million acres yearly.
It’s critical for farmers worldwide to control the rusts and fungal diseases that can rapidly destroy wide areas of crops. Wheat rust can infect stems and leaves, causing severe losses in yield and quality. Rust pathogens constantly mutate, leading to new races capable of overcoming the resistance genes bred into wheat.
In partnership with global researchers, Plant Pathology Professor Brian Steffenson has worked to develop wheats with a stronger, broader, and potentially more durable level of resistance against rust pathogens.
The team selected five different rust resistance genes isolated from wheat, wild wheat species, and rye and assembled them in a single “cassette” that was introduced into a susceptible wheat cultivar called “Fielder” by genetic engineering.
“Transferring a cassette of
multiple resistance genes into
wheat is like installing many burglar
alarms in a house,” said Steffenson. “If
one alarm is sounded for an invading pathogen, the plant will activate its defense responses to halt further infection.”
In 2018 and 2019, Steffenson and his team planted test plots in May and inoculated them with the stem rust pathogen in June/July, evaluating plants weekly for disease resistance.
The results were extraordinary. No stem rust pustules were found on any of the transgenic lines. In contrast, the susceptible wild type control of Fielder had disease infection from 60% to 95+%.
“It’s my hope that this breeding strategy will reduce the threat of rust diseases worldwide and contribute to food security,” said Steffenson.