Advances in Food Science and Safety

Before your favorite produce arrives at the grocery store, it must be carefully harvested and maintained across long stretches of time. A recent University of Georgia review suggests new temperature measuring technologies could make that process much simpler, amid growing agricultural challenges fueled by fluctuating climates. Maintaining temperature, humidity and light is critical to ensuring fruits and vegetables don’t spoil or deteriorate rapidly. Temperature spikes are the root of adverse outcomes, so monitoring these changes quickly and accurately is key.

A multidisciplinary team of UGA researchers aims to enhance the competitiveness of Vidalia onion growers in Georgia by providing them with the ability to confidently detect onion diseases early, enabling them to make management decisions on their crop at a critical time. These abilities, researchers say, should result in increased yield and quality of marketable onions and an overall increase in efficiency and productivity.

Changing weather patterns are influencing cropping systems and where certain crops can be successfully grown. Researchers in the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences recently published a study in the journal Sustainability examining the feasibility of expanding fresh vegetable production in Georgia as increased temperatures and more frequent and extreme droughts threaten producers in the Western United States.