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    Primarily tests of a optoelectronic in-canopy sensor for evaluation of vertical disease infection in cereals
    (New York, NY : Wiley, 2022) Dammer, Karl-Heinz; Schirrmann, Michael
    BACKGROUND: Health scouting of crops by satellite, airplanes, unmanned aerial (UAV) and ground vehicles can only evaluate the crop from above. The visible leaves may show no disease symptoms, but lower, older leaves not visible from above can do. A mobile in-canopy sensor was developed, carried by a tractor to detect diseases in cereal crops. Photodiodes measure the reflected light in the red and infrared wavelength range at 10 different vertical heights in lateral directions. RESULTS: Significant differences occurred in the vegetation index NDVI of sensor levels operated inside and near the winter wheat canopy between infected (stripe rust: 2018, 2019 / leaf rust: 2020) and control plots. The differences were not significant at those sensor levels operated far above the canopy. CONCLUSIONS: Lateral reflectance measurements inside the crop canopy are able to distinguish between disease-infected and healthy crops. In future mobile in-canopy scouting could be an extension to the common above-canopy scouting praxis for making spraying decisions by the farmer or decision support systems. © 2021 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.
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    Adaptation of a microbial community to demand-oriented biological methanation
    (London : BioMed Central, 2022) Khesali Aghtaei, Hoda; Püttker, Sebastian; Maus, Irena; Heyer, Robert; Huang, Liren; Sczyrba, Alexander; Reichl, Udo; Benndorf, Dirk
    Background: Biological conversion of the surplus of renewable electricity and carbon dioxide (CO2) from biogas plants to biomethane (CH4) could support energy storage and strengthen the power grid. Biological methanation (BM) is linked closely to the activity of biogas-producing Bacteria and methanogenic Archaea. During reactor operations, the microbiome is often subject to various changes, e.g., substrate limitation or pH-shifts, whereby the microorganisms are challenged to adapt to the new conditions. In this study, various process parameters including pH value, CH4 production rate, conversion yields and final gas composition were monitored for a hydrogenotrophic-adapted microbial community cultivated in a laboratory-scale BM reactor. To investigate the robustness of the BM process regarding power oscillations, the biogas microbiome was exposed to five hydrogen (H2)-feeding regimes lasting several days. Results: Applying various “on–off” H2-feeding regimes, the CH4 production rate recovered quickly, demonstrating a significant resilience of the microbial community. Analyses of the taxonomic composition of the microbiome revealed a high abundance of the bacterial phyla Firmicutes, Bacteroidota and Thermotogota followed by hydrogenotrophic Archaea of the phylum Methanobacteriota. Homo-acetogenic and heterotrophic fermenting Bacteria formed a complex food web with methanogens. The abundance of the methanogenic Archaea roughly doubled during discontinuous H2-feeding, which was related mainly to an increase in acetoclastic Methanothrix species. Results also suggested that Bacteria feeding on methanogens could reduce overall CH4 production. On the other hand, using inactive biomass as a substrate could support the growth of methanogenic Archaea. During the BM process, the additional production of H2 by fermenting Bacteria seemed to support the maintenance of hydrogenotrophic methanogens at non-H2-feeding phases. Besides the elusive role of Methanothrix during the H2-feeding phases, acetate consumption and pH maintenance at the non-feeding phase can be assigned to this species. Conclusions: Taken together, the high adaptive potential of microbial communities contributes to the robustness of BM processes during discontinuous H2-feeding and supports the commercial use of BM processes for energy storage. Discontinuous feeding strategies could be used to enrich methanogenic Archaea during the establishment of a microbial community for BM. Both findings could contribute to design and improve BM processes from lab to pilot scale.