POMA: A Practical Patented Technology for Detecting PVY

AppliColor Inc. has been awarded its first U.S. patent for its POMA application that is able to identify suspected PVY-infected plants. POMA works on a cellphone or drone. And yes--we are talking about making a likely PVY determination from a cellphone picture alone--without a lab test. Additional patents are pending.

POMA, using drone data, inspects every plant in a field and provides a GPS position for positive plants for subsequent rogueing. Roguers can then confirm the plant on the ground using a handheld smartphone.

POMA development

POMA is a collaboration between Willem Schrage, a retired program director at the North Dakota State Seed Department, and Alan Shulman, Ed.D., Founder and CEO of AppliColor Inc. Well over a thousand plants were imaged and visually analyzed by Willem, while Alan identified the clues in pictures Willem used to guide his evaluation to create the software. The Annual 2019 and 2020 Othello Commercial Seed Lot trials presented the opportunity, where a team of inspectors had flagged what they identified as PVY-positive plants from seed lots provided by growers across the US.

In 2020, POMA was compared to both inspector observations and Agdia immunostrip results. POMA was consistent with the onsite inspectors in 39 out of 40 instances; the one discrepancy may be explained by a cellphone’s color sensitivity advantage over human eyesight. Agdia strips also confirmed the inspector’s positives and negatives in all but six plants that the inspectors found positive. These six plants were from one seed lot. Both POMA and the inspectors found them to be positive, but their reading was not confirmed by testing.

The POMA technology is based on three different spectral measurements

1. Plant reaction can be detected within minutes of an insect inoculation.
2. Characteristic leaf-color pattern anomalies created as a virus compromises a leaf and travels through tubules (plasmodesmata) to adjacent chloroplasts, creating a characteristic mosaic pattern as one of the symptoms that inspectors may look for.
3. The relationship between spectral responses between stems and leaf surfaces.

The combination of these three parameters provides a high degree of confidence in the results.

The news gets better: POMA can identify Blackleg disease

In many instances, POMA has shown that there are differences in leaf appearance that may characterize insect inoculations or tuber-borne infections. POMA also has demonstrated its ability to identify Blackleg disease and found areas of possible spread of bacteria.

For the 2021 season, AppliColor is making POMA commercially available to agronomists and growers.

POMA is based on spectral expertise acquired by work with the Department of Defense with invaluable assistance from state seed departments from California, Minnesota, North Dakota and Colorado. AppliColor Inc. is based in Santa Rosa, CA. For more information, contact POMAFresh: info@pomafresh.com