Bacteriophage has Important Role in Agriculture and Aquaculture

Jan 05, 2021

Crop plants and animals can be infected by bacterial pathogens that reduce yield, cause food wastage, and carry human pathogens that spread disease on consumption. Bacteriophage can play an important role in microbial control, according to a new Special Issue on Agriculture and Aquaculture published in the peer-reviewed journal PHAGE: Therapy, Applications, and Research. Click here to read the issue.

"Although the number of problems associated with bacterial diseases in agriculture and aquiculture has increased, food producers are under pressure to reduce their reliance on antibiotics. There is therefore a clear need for effective antimicrobials to prevent and treat infections in food animals, to both reduce food waste, and prevent human infection. Clearly if developed properly, phages can at least in part, help to solve this need," says Martha Clokie, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of PHAGE and Professor of Microbiology, University of Leicester.

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Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.