Researchers in the WARF Accelerator program (part of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation) are using advanced imaging technology to detect late blight in potatoes, reports WisBusiness.

The program’s manager, Greg Keenan, who was cited by the report, noted that 1 billion people across the world eat potatoes, and late blight still has a global impact.

Potato growers in the state produced 28 million Cwt  (hundredweight) of potatoes in 2016, making Wisconsin the third-largest potato producing state in the country after Idaho and Washington. Potato farming is clustered in the central part of the state.

Keenan said that a Wisconsin professor who is involved in the project invented a way to detect the disease from an aerial-mounted imaging device, so the disease can be detected before the human eye can even see it. This will help Wisconsin potato farmers in dealing with this disease, and it certainly has global implications as well.