Grant: Alliance Grants

To meet its ambitious climate mitigation targets, it is critical for Canada to invest in sustainable agriculture. The key elements of sustainable agriculture are a) precision farming for efficient nutrient use, which results in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) production, and b) monitoring GHG emissions, which provides information on the effectiveness of the mitigation actions. In this research project, we will develop new technologies and tools that promote the fundamental elements of sustainable agriculture. We will design, fabricate, and field-test a sensing device to a) monitor nitrogen, a key soil nutrient, to enable precision agriculture, which, in turn, will result in reducing GHG emissions, and b) evaluate GHG emissions through direct measuring, to quantify the impact of the shift to precision nutrient control. Our approach involves applying several emerging technological innovations, including novel nanomaterial synthesize, new sensing platform design, and machine learning techniques, to create arrays of sensing nodes that are activated by UV-LEDs, resulting in a miniaturized and inexpensive multifunctional sensor. The sensor will be used to measure the spatial and temporal variations of nitrogen content and GHG emissions in several agricultural fields, enabling us to evaluate the sensor's applicability in real-world situations. It will ultimately be possible to deploy our sensors in agricultural fields for real-time mapping of nitrogen and GHG emissions. This would not only streamline informed decision-making regarding the use of fertilizers in each area but also promote sustainable farming practices. Providing high-resolution localized information on plant-available nitrogen and GHG emissions will be critical for agricultural producers to identify emission sources and evaluate mitigation actions when testing and implementing innovations and policies to optimize their operations and reduce emissions. We have developed a comprehensive strategy to translate the research results into application by building a strong coalition at the key levels of academia, government, international research institutions, and industry, with each organization bringing complementary expertise to the project.