Smart Spore Traps Could Help Farmers Save Harvests
Researchers in Krasnodar are developing digital monitoring devices capable of detecting wheat diseases up to 20 days before visible symptoms appear, giving growers valuable time to intervene before infections spread.
Fighting crop diseases and pests remains one of agriculture's oldest, most important, and most challenging tasks. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), pests and diseases destroy roughly one-third of global crop production each year.
Eliminating these losses would make it possible to solve the problem of global hunger with the world's current population. That is why plant pathologists worldwide continue searching for more effective technologies to detect crop diseases at the earliest possible stage.
To protect crops effectively, growers need monitoring systems capable of identifying disease before visible symptoms emerge. Otherwise, infections are typically recognized only after plants begin showing external signs of damage. By that point, pathogens have often spread across a substantial share of the field, increasing yield losses. Early detection of diseases and pests also allows producers to reduce unnecessary applications of crop protection chemicals, lowering production costs while decreasing pesticide pressure on agricultural ecosystems.
Capturing Spores Before Disease Spreads
Researchers at the Federal Scientific Center of Biological Plant Protection in Krasnodar have developed monitoring devices designed to track crop health by capturing airborne spores released by fungal pathogens. The technology enables wheat diseases to be detected as much as 20 days before visible symptoms appear.
A variety of methods are currently used to identify pathogens collected by spore traps, but digital technologies are increasingly taking over that role. "Optical diagnostic methods, including RGB imaging, multispectral and hyperspectral sensors, and thermography, are becoming more widely used. Software platforms and neural network-based mobile applications are also emerging for disease identification. However, these technologies still rely on visible symptoms. When disease severity is below 1%, the probability of detecting symptoms is extremely low, creating a risk that the pathogen will only be identified after it has already gained a firm foothold in the host crop. Our primary objective is therefore to develop methods capable of detecting diseases before any symptoms appear, during the earliest stages of pathogen development. Spore-trapping devices make that possible," says Oksana Kremneva, PhD in Biological Sciences, Lead Research Scientist and Head of the Agroecosystem Phytosanitary Monitoring Laboratory at the Federal Scientific Center of Biological Plant Protection.
Automating Spore Analysis
Once spores have been detected in the field, they must be identified rapidly and accurately, and the resulting data interpreted correctly. To accomplish that, researchers are training artificial intelligence models to recognize fungal spores automatically. Working with Neyronika and Phytosens, the Federal Scientific Center of Biological Plant Protection is conducting research on neural network technologies designed to enable fully automated remote crop monitoring.
The significance of this work is difficult to overstate. Researchers in the Kuban region are focusing on leaf diseases affecting winter wheat. In Krasnodar Krai, often referred to as Russia's breadbasket, winter wheat accounts for approximately 40% of all cultivated farmland. Protecting the crop requires monitoring an entire complex of diseases that are widespread across virtually every grain-producing region and can reduce yields by as much as 50%.
Digital spore traps help lower production costs while reducing the chemical burden placed on agricultural ecosystems. With accurate, field-level information about crop health, growers can move away from calendar-based spraying schedules and instead apply treatments only when phytopathogenic spores are detected early. Where pathogen pressure remains low, biological crop protection products can be used to support environmentally responsible production. That approach reduces fungicide applications while delivering meaningful cost savings for producers.
Growing Export Potential
The new monitoring devices are designed to detect fungal spores affecting a wide range of crops. Researchers are already expanding automated spore identification to barley production systems, while future work will focus on disease monitoring technologies for vineyards and fruit crops.
The spore traps are already being used on farms across Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Adygea, and Crimea. Once the monitoring process has been fully automated, the devices could be integrated into a nationwide phytosanitary monitoring network capable of forecasting disease risks across Russia.
Integrated systems combining spore traps, spore image databases, neural network models, and disease forecasting software also offer strong export potential in countries that cultivate grain crops, vineyards, and orchards. These systems have already attracted interest from growers. The technology, for example, is currently being used in the Republic of Belarus.
