Award Data

Project Description and Objectives:The overarching goal of this SBIR project is to develop a cost-effective, small-scale milk processing line for HTST pasteurization as a pathway to increased revenue and profitability for small and mid-size dairy farms. Intensive research will answer critical questions in two key areas: 1) Technical Feasibility - analysis of currently available processing line com ...

In the US alone, 3 billion pounds of consumed fresh tomatoes are grown in greenhouse farms. These farms improve food security, require less land, and consume less resources; however, for these farms to operate, large labor forces are needed to maintain, harvest, and package the tomatoes. These jobs, though paying well above minimum wage, do not attract local workers and force farmers to use immigr ...

Autonomous Vehicle Regulation:The time is ripe for introducing Autonomous Vehicles (AV) to the agricultural market. Michigan is the nation's leader in AV regulations, having passed 5 laws regulating AV operation in 2015 and 2016. On December 9, 2016 Governor Snyder signed into law PA 332 which allows for autonomous operation on any Michigan public road at any time and for any purpose without a ...

The importance of improving postharvest handling can be understood in terms of the primary impact of poor postharvest care--food loss. Technologies for improving postharvest handling focus on extending the shelf life of the fruit or vegetable while maintaining or improving upon the quality of the produce. A major achievement in prolonging produce storage life has been the implementation of cold st ...

We propose to develop a lightweight and affordable one-armed autonomous robot to transfer produce from a wheeled transport robot to a pallet. In-field automation improves efficiency by increasing production and/or reducing labor costs by up to $35M/year for California strawberries alone. Our robot will improve health and safety by reducing worker injuries from repeated lifting and by minimizing ch ...

Improvements in genome engineering tools have enabled unprecedented control over genetic material, allowing for tremendous potential for creating new crop varieties. As the world population climbs, there are increasing demands to efficiently produce and distribute food. This challenge, as well as higher temperatures, drought, flooding, pests, and disease place food security among the top of worldw ...

Summary:The objective of this project is to develop SPLAT FAW, a formulation to disrupt the mating of FAW in corn and other row crops, suppressing the pest's population in the treated area as well as the damage inflicted to the crop. An infestation by FAW can cause 15-73% reductions in corn crop yield, leading to losses between $0.5B and $2B a year. This makes FAW a serious liability for agric ...

Milk samples are a rich matrix of diagnostically relevant biomarkers that capture the acute physiology of the dairy cow. Almost all serological ELISAs are applicable in milk and, as forensic technologies continue to become a superior diagnostic tool in the dairy industry, the use of genetic markers in milk are becoming the forefront of dairy molecular diagnostics. Established national DHI sampling ...

Carotenoids, the basic source of yellow, orange and red, are among the most common, naturally occurring pigments. Because of their antioxidant properties and colors, currently, carotenoids are used commercially as feed additives, natural food colorants,??dietary supplements and cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. Currently, most of carotenoids used industrially are chemically synthesized from ...

In summary, this proposal will build a route to industrial manufacturing of a commercially viable polymeric material using Corn-based monomers like Isosorbide, test these methods and demonstrate a path to a prototype product. Work presented in this proposal is novel and unique in the following ways:First application of Isosorbide for making optical polymersFirst report of non-brittle Isosorbide po ...