By Jordan Powers
Farmers spend a lot of time keeping a careful eye on their crops, but what you see is not always what you get, as crops can quietly begin responding to drought, disease and insect pressure long before signs of stress are visible.
At the University of Georgia, Professor Liang Dong is developing sensor technologies designed to detect those early signals, giving plants a way to communicate what they are experiencing and helping farmers make faster, more informed decisions.
As the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Precision Agriculture, Dong brings renowned sensor research and a passion for crop diversity to UGA, where he sees innumerable opportunities to develop sensors and precision technologies for very different agricultural systems after nearly two decades in the Midwest.
With a joint appointment in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the College of Engineering, Dong also serves as associate director for research at the Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture — a role he says gives him the opportunity to think at a larger scale.
“I see engineering as a natural connector. Precision agriculture requires engineering, plant and animal sciences, AI and data science, Extension, economics, and many other areas working together,” Dong said. “UGA has that breadth, and I saw an opportunity to help connect those strengths and build something bigger.”
The Georgia Research Alliance is a nonprofit, public-private partnership that invests in recruiting researchers to Georgia’s universities, enhancing labs and providing crucial seed funding and guidance to help university researchers move promising discoveries to the marketplace. Dong is UGA’s 19th current GRA Eminent Scholar.
“Transformative agricultural technologies require more than one lab or one discipline. They require teams, infrastructure and long-term partnerships. The Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture is a wonderful hub for bringing those pieces together,” Dong said. “Along with the GRA support, it gives us a platform to attract talented students, researchers and partners and to move technologies from fundamental research toward real-world impact.”
Source : uga.edu