Canadian early alert system expands services for fungal crop diseases

Last year, a made-in-Canada system to alert farmers to the presence of airborne crop pathogens was showcased as one of Canada’s top 101 Most Innovative Predictive Analytical Companies. 

The Spornado is a simple and low cost in-field tool that passively traps air- and waterborne spores on specialized filters. Those filters are then analyzed for the presence of fungal pathogens that cause crop damage and yield losses. Growers use the results to guide spraying decisions.

Why it matters: Early detection of a pathogen allows growers to take action to prevent a disease from taking hold in a crop. As well, it ensures they spray fungicide only when needed, which saves on crop protection costs. 

In 2020, the start-up was selected to participate in a THRIVE Accelerator in California, and the following year was part of the AgLaunch Accelerator. Those experiences have helped prepare Spornado for fundraising as well as expand its grower trial network. 

Spornado can be used for any crop affected by fungal disease. The company has been running trials with 20/20 Seed Labs in Western Canada since 2018, testing for sclerotinia in canola and fusarium in cereals, and then expanding into potatoes.

Thanks to demand from growers, Spornado has rapidly expanded its testing capacity to include soy, cannabis, grapes, corn, strawberries, blueberries, cucurbits and sugar beets. 

“We have probably a dozen crop and disease combinations in various stages of development. We’re firmly commercialized in potatoes and tomatoes for early and late blight,” says president and co-founder Kristine White. “In some diseases like late blight, we are finding it in the air a week to 10 days before growers see it on the crops.” 

The company’s main clients are individual growers, but it is also working to do more outreach with agronomists, and some “proofs of concept” are underway with agricultural chemical companies to see how well Spornado could integrate with their products. 

According to White, the Prince Edward Island Potato Board has placed a number of the systems in that province to help with blight monitoring. Spornado is also in North Dakota, Idaho, Tennessee and Oregon, and is running trials in the UK, France and Serbia this summer. 

“We have great response from growers and agronomists with 90 per cent retention rate,” White says, adding she often hears that targeted spraying after a positive Spornado sample prevented a fungal disease from taking hold. 

Tracy Shinners-Carnelly is vice-chair of crop protection at Peak of the Market in Manitoba and has been working with Spornado for two years as part of a regional surveillance network for potatoes in southern Manitoba. 

Its first station was installed at Peak of the Market’s research site south of Winkler and its data was passed to provincial plant pathologist Dr. Vikram Bisht, who is making information from all the province’s Spornado locations available to the industry. 

“The risk of blight to the potato industry is a large one and having that additional layer of information about when spores are detected helps growers fine-tune their fungicide programs,” she says. “Ultimately, the goal is to reduce the amount of fungicide as well as the risk of disease. Having information like spore detection helps to better inform decisions and considerations for growers.” 

According to White, the team is looking at ways to make the process easier for growers so the technology can easily fit into their on-farm processes and routines. Increasing the number of crop and disease combinations, getting new crops into commercialization and geographic expansion are the goals for the immediate future, she says. 

Spornado has just installed its first system in the HVAC system of an indoor vertical farm in Guelph and will be going into a large pepper greenhouse, marking the first indoor ventures for the technology. 

In Ontario and Eastern Canada, the Spornado Disease Alert System is available directly from the company itself. On the Prairies, it is distributed through 20/20 Seed Labs.