Can Robigus Be the New Crop Guardian? This App Tracks Plant Diseases Globally

By Lourdes Mederos

Named after the Roman god who once guarded wheat fields from blight, Robigus is the newest tech ally in the fight against plant diseases. Developed by a scientist at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), the app can help detect crop threats globally with the tap of a screen or keyboard.

The app is already available to growers, scientists, homeowners and hosted on UF’s supercomputer, HiPerGator.

Braham Dhillon is a molecular plant pathologist at the UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center and a specialist in fungal pathogens of palms, woody plants and agricultural crops. His research program combines basic and applied science to better understand how these pathogens infect and spread.

“Plant diseases don’t respect borders,” Dhillon said. “With Robigus, we now have a way to see them globally. That kind of knowledge is essential for protecting crops and food security.”

The creation of Robigus stemmed from a challenge Dhillon faced in his own research: While valuable plant disease data exists, it’s scattered across thousands of scientific journals and early or “first reports” documenting new disease outbreaks. These “” are often the initial records of emerging threats to crops but they can be hard to find and access. He’s not alone in facing that challenge.

“A lot of labs around the world publish plant disease reports, but they often sit as individual articles on publishers’ websites,” Dhillon said. “There’s a tremendous amount of information pathogen names, host plants, locations, years of discovery but it’s locked in text. I built Robigus to bring that data together in a way that’s searchable and interactive.”