After more than 8 months of competition, on April 25th, the final summit of the second "Tomato Agricultural Research and Technology Competition" was held online. .
The team is composed of young "new farmers" from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, China Agricultural University, Northwest A&F University, Polestar Agriculture and Bayer Crop Science. The experience is translated into algorithms to help growers produce high-yield, nutrient-rich fruits.
On April 25, the final summit of the "Second Duoduo Agricultural Research Technology Competition" was held online.
According to reports, the second "Duoduo Agricultural Research Technology Competition" was jointly sponsored by Pinduoduo, China Agricultural University and Zhejiang University, with technical guidance provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Wageningen University.
Similar to the first "Technology Planting Strawberry", this year's competition is titled "Technology Planting Tomatoes", with the goal of "growing more and better" while focusing on environmental sustainability and commercial feasibility sex.
The event attracted more than 120 researchers from 15 teams around the world.
In the end, 4 teams entered the finals, including academic researchers from colleges and universities and practitioners of commercial cultivation.
Beginning in October last year, the finalists in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, the Netherlands and other places, through software remote control of the intelligent greenhouse located in the Kunming competition base in Yunnan, combined with nutrition, computer vision and deep learning and other precision agricultural technologies to grow tomatoes.
"In the meantime, although we can't see these crops every day, the human-machine fusion algorithm helps us in real time and constantly revise the planting strategy. This also verifies the future commercial value of this algorithm, which is to help growers improve efficiency and reduce error rates. And break the constraints of time and space." said Xu Dan, captain of the championship team "Tomato Fast Long".
In addition to "tomato fast growing", the other three teams also performed well.
The "Zhijia" team led by China Agricultural University finally won the Excellence Award, and the "Xi Persimmon" team composed of the "Nongsheng Brain" team and young scholars from Zhejiang University won the Excellence Award.
"Our global agri-food system needs innovative and sustainable solutions," said Carlos Watson, FAO Representative in China, at the summit. Technologists, entrepreneurs, research institutes and technology companies work together to create practical solutions to small farmers' real problems, tailored to specific needs."
Race for "Let More People Eat Good Tomatoes"
As one of the "Four Fruits" prioritized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, cherry tomato is an important economic crop widely planted in my country, and an important agricultural product for farmers to increase their income and become rich.
But so far, in many production areas in China, the cultivation of cherry tomatoes still faces bottlenecks such as extensive environmental control technology, low degree of mechanization and automation, and the yield and quality cannot meet the expectations of consumers.
It is said that the farmer's cultivation should be sharpened first.
To do a good job in agriculture, we must first have a methodology that keeps pace with the times.
In this competition, the four teams showed their respective strengths, and started a technology planting model that was completely different from the previous "face to the loess and back to the sky".
For example, how to make the weather information and lighting conditions controllable for agricultural production?
The "Digital Tomato Intelligent Management and Control Cloud Platform" developed by the "Zhijia" team has realized the functions of dynamic monitoring of the greenhouse environment, image monitoring of tomato growth, and identification of plant diseases.
When the real-time monitoring data of the greenhouse environment exceeds the threshold, the system will send a text message to remind the operator; in the same way, when the system identifies problems in leaves, flowers, fruits, etc. at different growth stages through visual technology, it will automatically give accurate warnings.
The growth of all things depends on photosynthesis, and carbon dioxide plays an important role in the high-quality and high-yield of facility agriculture.
For disease management, the “Tomato Fast Growth” team installed relevant sensors in the greenhouse, and through a self-developed disease management system, while monitoring the indoor climate and plant growth, the risk of common fungal diseases was monitored. Prediction helps growers avoid most disease risks.
This is one of the important reasons why the team achieves the highest yield and higher quality in the competition.
In addition, different from other agricultural science and technology innovation competitions, the "Duoduo Agricultural Research Technology Competition" not only assesses yield, quality and green and sustainable production methods, but also pays special attention to the commercialization of the results of the competition.
"The algorithm model accumulated in this competition, we will carry out a small-scale commercial pilot in the cooperation base in the next step, and hope to promote it to the whole country soon, so that different growers in different regions and different types of facilities can benefit." Xu Dan said.
Four years ago, Xu Dan returned to China to start a business from the Netherlands, which is famous for its smart greenhouse agriculture. He started growing healthy and delicious vegetables and fruits in the suburbs of Beijing with top glass greenhouse planting technology.
Among them, tomatoes are the main product. During this year's Beijing Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics, they have been supplied to the Olympic Village six times.
"This competition provides a good opportunity for young scientists to help them accurately understand the needs of growers and develop products in a targeted manner," said He Yong, Dean of the School of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science, Zhejiang University. "This competition is a traditional Agricultural planters and experts and scholars in the field of agricultural scientific research have built a platform for the exchange of agricultural frontier science and technology, which can promote the application of the actual achievements of agricultural science and technology to the vast fields."
The ancient agriculture lies on the loess, the young agriculture is held in the AI
Today's post-90s can no longer grow vegetables?
Not also.
Among the four finalist teams, members born in the 1990s account for about 80%, and many of them are the second generation of farmers who are determined to serve their hometowns.
"The reason why I am engaged in agricultural research is because I have grown accustomed to seeing adults digging in the loess with both hands for a living, exchanging high-intensity labor for a life of food and clothing." Zhu, the leader of the "Xi Persimmon" team and a doctoral student at Zhejiang University Chang An grew up in the countryside, and the traditional way of labor left a deep imprint on him.
"I hope to contribute a little bit of myself in improving the efficiency of agricultural production."
The finalists of the 2nd "Duoduo Agricultural Research Technology Competition".
"Talent is the first resource, and agricultural and rural scientific and technological talents are the foundation of strengthening agriculture and revitalizing agriculture." Li Daoliang, Dean of the International College of China Agricultural University and Changjiang Scholar of the Ministry of Education, said at the final summit of the second "Duoduo Agricultural Research Technology Competition", " To build a high-level agricultural scientific research talent team, we need to stimulate the vitality of everyone, and at the same time pay attention to the building of team spirit. This competition has built a platform for agricultural talents to discuss and exchange, and it is a very good talent training model.”
Zhao Chunjiang, head of the competition evaluation team and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, believes that the "Duoduo Agricultural Research Technology Competition" has carried out forward-looking innovations and attempts from algorithm models to smart planting practices, and has formed a number of practical technical solutions. .
This is of great significance to the development of the country's future smart agriculture.
Pinduoduo has made agriculture one of its core strategies since its inception.
In August last year, the company announced the "Ten Billion Agricultural Research Project" aimed at addressing the major needs of agriculture and rural areas, promoting the digitalization of agriculture with cutting-edge technologies.
This includes holding the "Duoduo Agricultural Research Technology Competition" for two consecutive years to promote the accelerated application of precision planting technology in agriculture.
"The driving force for improving the agricultural industry stems from the development and application of technology." Zhu Jianchong, senior vice president of Pinduoduo, said at the summit, "Through this competition, we clearly see that the low-cost application of agricultural technology can be very effective. Improve the level of agricultural production and management, and effectively improve the yield and quality of agricultural products. We firmly believe that the iteration and promotion of these technologies can create more added value for agricultural products, thereby bringing more income to the majority of agricultural growers.”