Spore Catcher: A Smart Tool for Plant Disease Monitoring and Prevention

You may not know that the occurrence and spread of many plant diseases are related to pathogenic spores. Spores are the reproductive units of fungal pathogens, which are tiny in size and numerous in quantity. They can be widely transmitted through media such as wind, rain, and insects. Once spores land on crops under suitable environmental conditions, they may germinate and infect the plants, causing various diseases such as wheat rust and vegetable downy mildew, which bring serious losses to agricultural production. Therefore, effective monitoring of spores has become a key link in disease prevention and control.

Spore Catcher under Tianyi provides a monitoring tool for the monitoring and prevention of diseases in smart agriculture. This instrument is based on modern information technologies such as optics, electricity, numerical control, as well as the Internet of Things and cloud computing. It is equipped with horizontal and vertical dual-axis motors inside, which operate flexibly and accurately, enabling all-round capture of spores. The built-in glass slide can cumulatively display the current usage level. When the glass slide is about to run out, the platform will send a timely reminder to inform the replacement time. Moreover, the glass slide supports manual reset operation, but the reset is protected by a password to ensure data security, and manual replacement of the glass slide is also very convenient.

The human-computer interaction interface of Spore Catcher is user-friendly, with a 10.4-inch high-definition large screen display and a Windows operating system. Users can easily view the taken photos, configure device parameters, and control device functions locally without complicated training. The high-resolution microscope inside the device can clearly capture and display spores ranging from 5 to 100um, providing high-quality image data for subsequent disease analysis. Through a special air duct airflow circulation design, the air inlets and outlets form a scientific air duct, which effectively ensures air circulation, reduces collection repetition rate, shortens sampling time, improves collection efficiency, and allows users to set the sampling time of the air inlet arbitrarily on the interface. Of course, the working time and sampling frequency can also be set arbitrarily by users according to actual needs.

Spore Catcher adopts cloud server technology, which can perform manual statistics and analysis on pictures of pathogenic spores. Users can also conduct real-time manual remote check and confirmation, shortening the prediction and forecast cycle. The device supports multiple networking methods such as 4G and RJ45 wired network. Through the web terminal and mobile APP terminal, users can remotely control the switching on/off of Spore Catcher, take photos (including remote automatic photo-taking and manual photo-taking), set sampling time, working hours, etc. The built-in GPS positioning function allows users to accurately view the device's location information on the web map, facilitating the deployment and scheduling of the device.

Real-time and accurate monitoring of airborne spores provides a scientific basis for disease prediction and forecasting, helps farmers make early prevention and control preparations, reduces the use of chemical pesticides, and realizes green and sustainable agricultural development.