General objectives

The NEMESI proposal focuses on forestry and agriculture wastes for the development of biobased products in order to reach a sustainable control of phyto-patologies. The multidisciplinary approach proposed in NEMESI is based on the use of the chemical nanotechnology. NEMESI involves the production and characterization of safe and effective nano-formulated agrochemicals thanks to a pioneering Green Chemistry approach. In particular, micro / nano-carriers based on nanocellulose will be synthesized and characterized. Nanocellulose will be obtained from the agro/forestry wastes by means of different extraction procedures and cellulose manipulation techniques. Healthy and environmentally friendly pre-treatment procedures will be accurately studied.
The proposed goal is to obtain plant protection products, fertilizers and insecticides with maximum efficiency and minimum environmental impact.
NEMESI also provides for the development of diagnostic techniques for the real time monitoring of the applied therapy.
An array of sensors will be set up during the NEMESI project for in situ, in continuum and real time monitoring of the real parameters connected to plant physiology, structural features of the cultivations and microclimate change. Each sensor will be designed for every monitored plant, allowing the monitoring of the plant response to a specific treatment. This system (TreeTalker) is based on a sensors net connected to the project database by IoT (Internet of Things).
The recorded data will be analyzed in order to obtain a correlation between the plant pathogen and the adopted procedure. ICT technologies will be used to analyze and manage all collected data.

CMCC ROLE

CMCC participates in Milestone4: Development of therapies to contrast pathogens and to support the infected plants.

Activities:
4.9 – Development of an IoT system for in vivo monitoring and early diagnosis (ED)
4.10 – Analysis of the monitoring activities and early diagnosis (IR)
4.11 – Vegetation modeling (IR)
4.12 – ICT platform design for monitoring and early diagnosis (IR)
4.13 – ICT platform implementation for monitoring and early diagnosis (ED)

Activities

• Development of an IoT system for in vivo monitoring and early diagnosis (ED): the activity involves the development of a sensors system for the in situ and real-time monitoring of the parameters related to vegetable physiology, to the structural features of the crops and to microclimate variability.
• Analysis of the monitoring activities and early diagnosis (IR): data will be analyzed to detect a possible relationship with the pathogenic infection, along with the physio-sanitary treatment and the outcome under different natural stress conditions.
• Vegetation modeling (IR): the activity will enable the study of the pathogen diffusion and the plant response in different climate scenarios and stress conditions.
• ICT platform design for monitoring and early diagnosis (IR): the goal of this task is dataflow planning, definition and optimization for the real time and spatio-temporal analysis of data coming from the sensors.
• ICT platform implementation for monitoring and early diagnosis (ED): this task involves the implementation of the ICT platform that will allow the monitoring and visualization of various climate quantities such as temperature, humidity, soil composition, as well as biological quantities to identify pathogens in the different crops on the territory.

Expected results

The development of the new services and products in NEMESIS amplifies the industrial impacts in terms of environmental impacts reduction, economic waste reduction, agro-drug stability increase, advanced analytical methods transferable to other products in the industry or to products from different production sectors.
The project involves very innovative research activities leading to scientific results that will be announced in international scientific journals and national and international conferences. The creation of an efficient network of partnerships involving universities and enterprises would be the basis for the conversion of a national project into a wider participation in EU initiatives within the H2020 framework.

The project expected results in terms of knowledge transfer and technology will have an impact on the community at different levels:

• policy makers and intergovernmental organizations will exploit the availability of new innovative tools for the sustainable containment of old and new pathogens;
• the company will benefit from plant protection programs that will help alleviate the impact of traditional agro-chemicals;
• the scientific community will use the technology developed in the present project against the etiologic agents of vine and olive for the design of new agro-drugs useful for the containment of other pathogenic agents associated with diseases that greatly affect the local and national economy.

PARTNERS

• Centro di Ricerca Sperimentazione e Formazione in Agricoltura “Basile Caramia” (CRSFA)
• CIHEAM Istituto Agronomico Mediterraneo di Bari (IAMB)
• Federazione Provinciale COLDIRETTI di Lecce
• Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (Fondazione CMCC)
• INSTRUMENTS S.R.L.
• LEANFA S.r.l.
• LICOFARMA S.r.l.
• NANOSHARE S.r.l.
• DIA. S.r.l.
• SPAGRO S.r.l.
• Studio EFFEMME Chimica Applicata S.r.l.
• Università degli Studi della TUSCIA