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A NOTE FROM Shawn Donkin
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The College of Agriculture continues to establish new opportunities for research and education as a result of cross-disciplinary collaborations and the investments made in plant sciences since 2013.
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The new Controlled Environment Phenotyping Facility (CEPF) is just one way we are helping our researchers and students gain access to cutting-edge technologies. The CEPF's open house last month, which you'll read more about later in this newsletter, was a resounding success!
Not surprisingly, one good thing leads to another. In addition to providing access to novel phenotyping platforms, we are working with Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) to create a data pipeline at the CEPF and the Agronomy Center for Research and Education (ACRE). The College has joined forces with the HPE company Aruba to mobilize Aruba Wi-Fi and HPE Edgeline technologies in a project that will capture hundreds of terabytes of data daily from sensors, cameras and human inputs. With the help of MicroFocus, a data pipeline is being developed – using such languages as Hadoop, Kafka and PSTL to a robust data-management platform that will enable us to manage the data generated by the CEPF, ACRE and other data-intensive projects. Look for more on this exciting initiative.
The end goal for digital agriculture is faster, deeper and more complete research results. There is no doubt — it's an exciting time to be a part of plant sciences at Purdue!
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All the best,
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Shawn Donkin, Ph.D.
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Interim Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education
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Meet the newest faculty members and check updates on academic programs
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Discover the latest research findings and technology developments
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Explore Smarter Ag® and find updates for data management
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Connect and hear about recent plant sciences innovations
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Did you know?
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| The Institute for Plant Sciences brings in more than $23 million in annual grant funding for plant science-related projects. That makes up one-third of the College's external grant funding! |
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ACADEMICS
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Meet the newest faculty members and find updates ON academic programs
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| Plant Science Symposium hosted by the Purdue Center for Plant Biology |
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The Center for Plant Biology (CPB) will host a one-day plant science symposium on Friday, September 7 in Pfendler Hall Dean's Auditorium. The goal of the symposium is to foster interactions between Purdue plant biologists, colleagues and students from various Midwest institutions. The event will highlight Purdue's plant biology research, including talks by faculty, postdocs, students and three invited speakers.
A College of Agriculture networking social and poster session will follow the event on campus at Marriott Hall. |
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| Molecular Agriculture Summer Institute (MASI) |
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 The 2018 MASI Undergraduate Fellowship has accepted 10 students into the program, which will run from May 21 to July 27. The participants will spend 40 hours per week as assistants in the labs of their faculty research mentors. They'll complete a Communication Lunch Series hosted by the agricultural sciences education and communication department to help them report their research experience to varied audiences; attend lunches and tours related to molecular agriculture; and present a research poster at an industry site. The Office of Academic Programs (OAP), faculty mentor and mentor's home department each pay $1,800 toward the students' stipends. OAP funds additional programmatic costs and workshops.
We're also looking forward to bringing high-school sophomores and juniors to campus June 24-30 for the 2018 Pre-College MASI science experience, with applications currently being reviewed. Faculty research mentors host students in their laboratories for the week. The OAP funds the program, which has had great success in students pursuing STEM majors and careers, including students applying to Purdue and the College of Agriculture.
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Research
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Discover the latest research findings and technological developments
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| Controlled Environment Phenotyping Facility (CEPF) |
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Step by step, researchers are gaining access to CEPF technology. The RGB imaging booth is ready to facilitate preliminary data acquisition. The hyperspectral imaging (HSI) booth is still undergoing its optimization process, and we expect it could start providing service to research projects by the end of May or early June.
The CEPF's April 27 open house drew more than 200 visitors, who enjoyed exploring the facility and learning more about its major subsystems, including the Conviron growth chamber, RGB imaging, HSI and multi-recipe fertigation. Photos from the event are included in this end-of-semester gallery.
Didn't get to the open house? Take a trip around the conveyor with a few plants to see the facility's inner workings.
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| Beauty and Power Beneath the Surface |
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 A tree-shaped curio sits atop a bookshelf in Anjali Iyer-Pascuzzi's office. It looks ominous, but turn the tree upside down and its bare branches transform into a beautiful, intricate root system replica.
Perhaps this curio symbolizes a larger issue in plant science research — the vast untapped potential of roots.
"Roots are important to agriculture, and they have not been as well studied," says Iyer-Pascuzzi, assistant professor of botany and plant pathology at Purdue. "One way to improve crops is by improving roots, and there's a whole lot we don't understand about that."
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| Indiana Corn and Soybean Innovation Center (ICSC) |
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Most of the threshing and shelling is complete in preparation for the 2018 growing season, and several labs have utilized the seed counters and packet printers prior to planting. The grinding room remodel is complete, greatly improving the overall work environment in that room. The large and noisy dust collection system has now been separated from the working area.
The Institute has hired a licensed UAV pilot! Jaspar Saadi-Klein, a Purdue Polytechnic Institute student, is available to fly across the state using a MicaSense RedEdge multispectral camera. We are looking to partner with you to image your row crop, forage, orchard or any other type of research need. If you are interested and have questions, contact Jason Adams. |
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Data Management
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ICSC Featured Equipment: Inside the grinding room |
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Eberback grinders
Three heavy-duty Eberbach grinders grind seed and plant material to a fine powder for further processing.
- Cutting speed: 01-1740 rpm
- Sample input size: 2.25 Diameter
- Four sieve sizes: 6mm, 4mm, 2mm, 1mm
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UDY Grinders
Two UDY grinders are available for general purposes on a variety of materials.
- Used for NIR testing
- Five sieve sizes: 2mm, 1mm, .5mm, .4mm, .25mm
- Sample feed controller
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| u.S. Senator and FCC Commissioner visit the Indiana Corn and Soybean Innovation center |
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 U.S. Senator Todd Young and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr toured the Indiana Corn and Soybean Innovation Center last week (May 2). Interim Dean Karen Plaut emphasized the importance of digital agriculture technologies in developing sustainable agricultural practices.
Purdue University faculty and staff also discussed the importance of reliable, high-speed internet access in rural areas. |
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| Purdue Extension educators becoming certified to fly drones across the state |
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Purdue Extension educators are training to scout fields and crops across the state using unmanned aerial vehicles to collect data that can be used for actionable decision making. In a series of UAV flight training workshops, Purdue agronomists and certified pilots cover a wide range of topics and practical tips, from flying protocol to image capture and storage.
The workshops are based on best management practices for flying a UAV with the DJI Go 4 or Drone Deploy apps. Trainees learn about FAA regulations and obtaining a pilot's license, and practice such fundamental flight procedures as assessing environmental conditions, creating a flight plan and keeping flight records. A lot of data collected in the first year will be used as a starting point to understand how best to collect data for the future.
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Data Management
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Explore Smarter Ag® and find latest updates for data management
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| Digital agriculture discussions lead to collaboration across disciplines |
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The College of Agriculture hosted several digital agriculture events in the past few months to encourage new collaborations across disciplines and shape the future of Purdue's digital agriculture initiative. On March 2, the College hosted over 100 faculty, staff and administrators at a Digital Ag forum to identify actionable themes related to teaching, research and extension.
Click here to access the recordings.
As a result of that meeting, working groups formed in April to summarize key findings and tackle challenges related to the themes listed below.
- Curating and managing data
- Enabling machine learning
- Undergraduate education
- Analytics and data science for research
If you are interested in contributing to the conversation, you can join the digital ag group on smarterag.org using your Purdue credentials. Or, you can contact Dennis Buckmaster. |
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| CEPF Software automation underway |
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At the Controlled Environment Phenoytping Facility, Rick Westerman is working to establish the automatic communication between the growth chamber control software and the overall logistic control software. The Zegami software has been tested and demonstrated capability in data visualization, and staff are working on the automation of the Zegami operation.
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Entrepreneurship
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Connect and hear about recent plant sciences innovations
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| Hydroseeding adhesive wins student soybean innovation competition |
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 A chat with farmers over a cup of coffee in a small Indiana town led to an invention that earned a team of four students first place in the 2018 Student Soybean Innovation Competition. Team SoyTrack won $20,000 for its soy-based tackifier, a fast-curing, formaldehyde-free soil stabilizer. The Indiana Soybean Alliance has funded the competition since 1994. |
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| In its second year, ASPIRE internship for student innovators to advance prototypes |
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A group of students will engage in research on Purdue's campus again this summer to continue moving their soy-based products towards commercialization. This year's ASPIRE (Ag Soy Product Innovation Realization & Entrepreneurship) interns, and the products they're working on, are Susan Hubbard, hydroseeding adhesive; Samantha Tinney, soy-based substitute for bee propolis; Patrick Woodson, timed degradable plastic; and Luping Xu, soy-based food spray. These students will complete an 11-week program working closely with the Purdue Foundry and participating in research and customer-delivery activities.
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Erin Robinson, Editor, Communications & Marketing Specialist
Institute for Plant Sciences
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