SBIR-STTR Award

Food water and environment contaminations are deep concerns for growers the public and government. Bacterial content of surface water can be subject to rapid changes following heavy rainfall or from localized contamination sources. A recent E.coli Romaine lettuce outbreak which was linked to contaminated irrigation canal water has resulted in five deaths and close to a hundred hospitalizations thus providing a painful reminder about the importance of controlling Ag water quality. Laboratories equipped to perform microbiological analyses are often not located in the proximity of farms drastically complicating the logistics of sample collection and transport and increasing associated costs. There is a manifest need for simple monitoring tools for on-site irrigation water quality assessment monitoring to ensure its safety for agricultural use. To address this need ALERT-Ag++ focuses on the development of an on-farm E.coli detection system allowing rapid remote high frequency monitoring and reporting of bacterial levels in a simple-to-use and affordable package. During Phase I a product concept for agricultural water quality monitoring will be manufactured and will be field-tested by select growers and water quality experts. The prototype will implement the use of disposable measurement cartridges to simplify field maintenance. The user interface will also be adapted for agricultural applications with a simple data reporting and archival module designed to respond to growers' operational and regulatory reporting requirements. The project will further engage in side-by-side laboratory evaluation against approved methods in preparation of the regulatory approval process.

Ag water is recognized by growers and regulators as a potential conduit for microbiological contamination of produce in pre- and post-harvesting operations in view of the produce safety regulations contained within the FSMA. There is a very strong need in the grower community for on-farm technologies allowing rapid remote accurate monitoring and reporting of E. coli levels in a simple-to-use and affordable package. The ALERT-Ag++ Phase II project will respond to this need by building on Phase I results where initial prototypes were tested and evaluated by a variety of users ranging from individual growers to water quality specialists produce associations regulators utilities and municipalities. The feedback received from such a wide variety of users will be swiftly integrated into the ergonomics of the final product for the Ag market to ensure it properly responds to all the intended uses. Alert-Ag++ targets the development of an rapid automated on-farm pathogen detection system for agricultural (Ag) water quality monitoring more specifically for automatically quantitating fecal indicator bacteria (E.coli) and alerting on the presence of key pathogenic serotypes. The concept of the field analyzer integrating a disposable cartridge concept for E.coli analysis successfully beta