Fasal-IoT, A Game Changer for Tracking Underground Pathogens
Farmers generally struggle hard while detecting and diagnosing soil-borne diseases. Because at first, these disease signs may be mistaken for abiotic stress. However, affected plants appear typically similar. Soil-borne pathogens may be nematodes, fungi, bacteria, or some viruses. Diagnosis of a soil-borne disease can be complex and depends on a combination of observed symptoms and prior knowledge of the disease.
How Soil-Borne Diseases Contribute to Plant Disease Epidemics:
Soil-borne infections generate epidemics when they spread invasively in a susceptible population. Soil-borne diseases can grow saprophytically in soil, colonize the rhizoplane, and infect roots. Generally, root rots, vascular wilts, and other diseases caused by soilborne pathogens result in only one infection cycle of every crop cycle. The inoculum is typically a surviving structure that is resistant to desiccation or freezing, such as sclerotia, chlamydospores, or oospores in soil or mycelium in crop leftovers. This inoculum is distributed in the soil through plowing, fitting, and turning under crop leftovers. The newly planted crop’s roots become infected when they come into contact with pathogen propagules embedded in the soil matrix. In addition, bacteria such as Xanthomonas spp., Pseudomonas spp., Ralstonia spp., and other parasitic nematode inoculum live in soil and cause significant losses.
Soil-Borne Disease Symptomatology:
The infection incited by a soil-borne pathogen can infect both above and below ground portion of the plant. The most common below-ground symptoms are root rots, root knots, club roots, collar rot, vascular browning, oozing, and galls of the nematodes. Common above-ground symptoms are stem rot, steam blight, fruit rot, shoot/stem canker, etc. A few symptoms of edaphic diseases confuse us with abiotic stress that is moisture, nutrient stress, and pesticide toxicity. These are chlorosis, wilting, drying, drooping, mottling, leaf scorching, enation, stunting, etc. It is very tedious to confirm them early as pathological causes at the early stages. In the late season, the detection might not help the farmers to save the crop from potential yield losses.
Fig: Typical symptoms shown by soil-borne pathogens
Fig: Disease Triangle of soil-borne plant disease
Key Factors that Influence Soil-Borne Pathogens:
The incidence of soil-borne infection favored by the following conditions
- Edaphic environment favoring the pathogen (soil temperature, soil moisture)
2. Soil physical properties (soil aeration, soil decomposition rate)
3. Soil chemical properties (soil pH, nutrient stress, soil organic matter, ion exchange)
How Fasal-IoT Helps in Tracking Soil-Borne Diseases:
Soil-borne plant pathogenic infections create a systemic infection that affects the plant’s major physiological functions, such as photosynthesis, transpiration, and the translocation of water and nutrients, resulting in considerable economic losses.
For the majority of fungal and bacterial species, the inoculum resides in soil causing primary and secondary infections for a longer time. The incidence and severity of soil-borne diseases in cultivated systems depend on biotic and abiotic environmental conditions and agronomic practices. Soil temperature and soil moisture are the key factors that help in the survival and dispersal of pathogens.
Fasal IoT is the hub of wireless sensors that capture real-time soil moisture and soil temperature according to soil type. This data is crucial in tracking the activity of soil-borne pathogens. The real-time data is stored in a cloud and that will check for the favorable conditions in models and assign the risk accordingly.
The data related to soil temperature and soil moisture received from these sensors is then processed using machine learning and other data analytics techniques that are useful in providing the alarms of soil pathogens.
Fig: Fasal app displaying soil-borne disease alarms
The alarms help track the pathogen activity before actual infection starts and help to prevent the incidence and spread of soil-borne diseases. Immediate action will help the farmers to break down the spread of the disease and save the crop from yield losses.
Fig: Factors considered by Fasal to develop Soil-borne disease model
Conclusion:
Fasal’s precision technology assists farmers in protecting crops from severe soilborne diseases. Also, protects soil health, resulting in rich fertility, an enhanced defense mechanism, and maximized yield. Data-driven decisions enable farmers to save money and time. Effectively design the need-based pesticide application in the field. Farmers can use the Fasal app to monitor subsurface climate conditions regularly from anywhere without the need for manpower.
