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Monitoring the evolution of existing nutrients and acidity level in media culture throughout plant multiplication and rooting stage

Country of Origin: Portugal
Reference Number: TRPT20160617001
Publication Date: 17 June 2016

Summary

It is a young SME established in 2010.  In November 2015 applied and won phase 1 of SME Instrument.
It is a portuguese company specialized in the propagation of plants by in vitro propagation, tissue culture method.
They are looking to establish a manufacturing agreement with an European partner ( outside Portugal) to that can develop and produce in large scale (100 units for trials) a gel sensor, able to continually monitor for 8 weeks and be reusable.

Description

It is a young SME established in 2010.  In November 2015 applied and won phase 1 of SME Instrument.
It is a portuguese company specialized in the propagation of plants by in vitro propagation, tissue culture method.
They are looking to establish a manufacturing agreement with an European partner ( outside Portugal) to that can develop and produce in large scale (100 units for trials) a gel sensor, able to continually monitor for 8 weeks and be reusable.
It must be small (the size of 1 or 2-euro coin) autonomous regarding energy use (with a battery), wireless, and able to undergo a sterilization process.
It will be a partnership to apply to H2020 call.
The industry of biotechnology demands an increase in agro-food production to accommodate the large global population. To achieve this goal, new technologies are being developed and applied to provide a solution to gather and process information to enhance productivity. Moreover, the scenario of climate changes and scarcity of water demands new and improved methods for agriculture and horticulture. To accomplish this mission there is an urgent need for automation and intelligent decision making.
The overall objective of this project is to develop and manufacture a smart system to evaluate and monitor in vitro plant production, specifically physical and chemical properties of culture conditions that allow an optimal growth and development and as well as the presence and development of suppressant bacteria. This smart system will integrate sensors, innovative MEMs, processing power, embedded memory, communication capabilities and optimized use of supply power.
The technology breakthroughs provided by the integration of the micro and nano-electronic sensors, the bio-chemical sensors and the multi-functional smart integrated system will result in highly reliable and resource efficient solution with technological developments that will enable answers in particular for food production, environmental monitoring and energy performance.
Monitoring the culture media evolution throughout the multiplication stage is the unique feature that will make this monitoring system totally new regarding previous existing approaches, applied to micropropagation. The culture media is a major component of a micropropagation system; this media is the primary source of nutrients for plant development. It is composed of demi-water, a mixture of salts, supplying essential macro and micro elements together with a carbon source and vitamins. The culture media is the subject of continuous improvement in the attempt to find the right balance between all components, which until now is only done by trial-and-error making it a long time and resource consuming process this research is performed separately for each specie variety, since different plant varieties have different nutrient requirements.
The monitoring of the different components of the culture media would then allow us a real-time understanding of the actual nutritional needs of the plants. It would also be possible to verify some of the by-products that are produced by plants. Thus the production of the media would be held in a more sustainable and beneficial way in terms of cost-benefit, it is one of the stages of micropropagation that has higher costs and greater impact on the entire production cycle.
This technique of plant propagation can be used for multiplication of several different species and cultivars of fruit plant crops. Keeping this in mind the success of this project opens new possibilities to improve global agriculture and ultimately contribute to increase food security.

Expertise sought

The gel sensor should be battery powered and with wireless connectivity to facilitate data collection without opening the boxes along the production cycle, continuous monitor (8 weeks), re-usable. These sensors are also required to be low-cost, small size (1-2euro coin size), undergo a sterilization process and easy to install on growth vessel. 
It should be able to monitor macro nutrients (calcium: CaCl2, Ca(NO3)2.2H2O; Potassium: KH2PO4, K2SO4; Magnesium: MgSO4; Azoto: NH4NO3) and micro nutrients (CuSO4.5H2O; FeNaEDTA; H3BO3; MnSO4.H2O; Na2MoO4.2H2O; ZnSO4.7H2O); vitamins (Glycine, myo-Inositol, Nicotinic acid, Thiamine HCl), hormons (IBA; BA; Ga3; Kinetine; NAA; IAA); pH and carbon source (glicose). It is not mandatory to monitor all these components but the most of them.

Stage Of Development

Concept stage

Stage Of Development Comment

At this stage, only the sensor requirements are defined.

Requested partner

They are looking to establish a manufacturing agreement with an European partner ( outside Portugal) to that can develop and produce in large scale (100 units for trials) a gel sensor, able to continually monitor for 8 weeks and be reusable.
It must be small (the size of 1 or 2-euro coin) autonomous regarding energy use (with a battery), wireless, and able to undergo a sterilization process.
It will be a partnership to apply to H2020 call.

Cooperation offer is closed for requests