Ag tech focus of free DIGICROP online conference March 28-30

The International Conference on Digital Technologies for Sustainable Crop Production (DIGICROP) will be held March 28-30. The conference is a fully remote event with presentations in video format followed by discussions. 

DIGICROP 2022 is organized by the German Cluster of Excellence “PhenoRob – Robotics and Phenotyping for Sustainable Crop Production” at the University of Bonn and the AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems. It brings together researchers across disciplines who develop, propose, use or evaluate new digital technologies to enhance the sustainability of crop production, crop breeding, biodiversity and ecosystems. The goal of the event is to foster a robust international and interdisciplinary dialogue in these topic areas.

Although scientists and researchers will be delivering fairly technical presentations, the conference is open to the public, said Hanna Bartram, education and public engagement coordinator for the AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems. The institute is supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, as part of a larger initiative led by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Participants can view all of the talks ahead of time and explore the program for the live event at https://digicrop.de/program.

“All of the talks are already on the website. People can watch them now,” said Andy Lyons, program coordinator for Informatics and GIS at University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, a partner of the AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems. “The live event March 28-30 will be devoted to Q&A with the presenters.”

Examples of presentations include:

• Keynote speaker Stavros Vougioukas, professor of biological and agricultural engineering at UC Davis: Robotic harvesters and harvest-aids: Challenges and opportunities
• Steve Fennimore, UC Cooperative Extension specialist at UC Davis:
  Automated Weed Removal Technologies Greatly Improve the Resilience of Vegetable Weed Management Programs 
• Christine Diepenbrock, assistant professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis:
  Digital and AI technologies to improve crop nutritional quality and abiotic stress tolerance 
• Isaya Kisekka, associate professor of agrohydrology and water management in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources and Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at UC Davis:
  Evaluating the effect of Soil Heterogeneity on Root Zone Water Dynamics in Almond Orchards using Electrical Resistivity Tomography 
• Joshua Viers, professor of water resources management in the School of Engineering at UC Merced:
  AI for Ag for the San Joaquin Valley: using inclusive innovation to break the productivity paradox

Registration is open until March 24 and free of charge. To register, visit https://digicrop.de/register.

Join the live event March 28-30 starting at 8 a.m. Pacific time via Zoom. The Zoom links will be made available a few days prior to the conference via the conference area (login required) at https://digicrop.de/conference-area.

For more information, please contact the conference organizers at digicrop2022@phenorob.de. To join the discussion on Twitter, follow #DIGICROP2022 and @ai_nextgenfood.

The AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems brings together more than 40 researchers from six institutions: UC Davis; UC Berkeley; Cornell University; the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; UC Agriculture and Natural Resources; and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.

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