EFFECTIVE DISEASE SCREENING
SOLUTIONS

Problem

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Croptix is developing a practical turn-key solution for identifying crop disease, allowing you to spot problems long before they’re visible to the naked eye. Croptix quickly identifies suspect areas in your fields and will help you make management decisions in a timely fashion to mitigate crop loss, before it’s too late.

THE PROBLEM

Croptix is currently working on solutions for identifying the deadly Huanglongbing (HLB) disease, also known as citrus greening. HLB decimates citrus groves wherever it strikes — and there is no cure. The disease is caused by a bacterial pathogen (Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus), which is carried tree to tree by a small insect called the Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP). HLB can reside in a tree for many months prior to visible symptoms, slowly killing the tree, while acting as a host to be spread to other trees. The only way to prevent its rapid spread is to detect HLB early, eradicate infected trees, and improve management techniques to contain ACP.

Rapid Spread

Originally found in Asia, HLB is spreading devastation around the globe. In the United States, HLB was first detected in Florida in the late 90’s and now is hitting Texas and southern California. In Florida alone, citrus production plummeted by 60 percent in little more than a decade.

THE CROPTIX SOLUTION

There is no cure for HLB.
The only way to prevent its spread is through proactive management. Croptix has the most practical solution that is both affordable at scale and sensitive enough to screen individual trees early, before the disease spreads throughout a grove. The Croptix solution provides a monitoring and remediation program that works together with the industry's plan to fight HLB.

Croptix Features

Croptix uses a revolutionary patented technology to look inside the leaves of citrus trees for signs of HLB and other diseases. This allows you to take action before you would be able to see the disease with your naked eye and prevents the disease from spreading throughout your groves. You can screen large areas rapidly and affordably on a regular schedule. Croptix stores your geo-tagged data in a secure database and applies artificial intelligence to achieve a constantly improving recommendation specific to your grove and your growing conditions.

HLB Screening

Quickly identify suspect trees

Better Prediction

Cloud-based machine learning recognizes disease patterns

Detection Alerts (soon)

Real-time disease warnings

Mapping of Your Grove

GIS map layers let you visualize results

Multiple User Types

Set access levels for admins, managers and staff

Smartphone Management (soon)

Download follow-up locations and recommendations

Results by Tree

Measurements GPS tagged to individual trees

Lab Coordination

If requested, we'll help send your samples

ID of Other Diseases (soon)

Find out what else might be afflicting your grove

We Don’t Look At It…We Look In It.

We use our patented Croptix technique to analyze the inside of leaf structures in real time, looking for small changes that indicate a disease is taking hold. Other optical techniques use an external leaf reflectance measurement which provides limited information on the inside of the leaf. Croptix’s miniature spectrophotometer captures light that has diffused in and re-emerged from the leaf. This “optical fingerprint” is then analyzed by machine learning algorithms to accurately diagnose stresses such as disease, nutrient deficiency and water stress. Croptix diagnoses disease long before you can see it, giving you a head start on preventing its spread.

Solution

SCREENING SERVICE

Croptix Screening Service Details

Your team, or a Croptix service provider, runs our easy to use sensors in your fields, without costly help from technicians or scientists. We provide as much support as you need, and monitor operations behind the scenes to ensure the best possible results with our system. Croptix™ analysis quickly turns around the results so you can take immediate action on suspect trees.

What’s included:

Detailed grove condition analysis
Alerts of suspect trees
Historical tracking to identify trends in tree health
Access to a secure online web portal to view your results

Field equipment provided:

Field-ready Croptix leaf sensors powered by Atoptix optical spectroscopy technology
On-person front carrier packs for operation in the field
On-site training and setup

Croptix WebAPP Details

Croptix™ analysis quickly turns around screening results so you can take immediate action on suspect trees. Integral to the service, Croptix creates an account specific to your operation in its web enabled application (webAPP), which allows you to view results anywhere, anytime, from any device.

Current Features:

View screening results plotted on interactive maps of your fields
Schedule screening routes and activities
Track your team's efforts in the fields to make sure they are on track
View historical screening results to identify trends in tree health
Secure sign-in and account management from anywhere and on any device

Results On Demand

Screening

THE CROPTIX ADVANTAGE

Affordable

An economical proactive technique

Early Warning

Detects disease before you can see it

Scalable

Deploy screening across an entire region

Best Practices

Consistent with industry HLB management guidelines

Turnkey

Technology, protocol and analysis, all in one

Easy to Manage

Cloud platform for simple, easy to access results viewing

The Croptix Difference
Our patented technique uses optical spectroscopy to look inside leaves of suspect trees and then spot disease before it’s visible to the human eye. Only Croptix’s unique technology allows you to affordably screen entire groves as part of a predictable and reliable grove management solution.

From Lab to Field

Croptix is leveraging powerful laboratory optical techniques coupled with artificial intelligence to tackle the $220 billion global annual loss of crops due to damage from plant disease and help improve global food security. The company is building on the work of co-founders Dr. Perry Edwards and Dr. Zhiwen Liu, who founded Atoptix to mobilize patented optical technology developed at Penn State University for solutions in human health and plant health. The pair successfully applied their combined expertise in biosensing with their team of engineers and other scientists to develop the Croptix platform, which offers a truly practical field-deployable solution for farmers to effectively screen for crop diseases.

Advantages