Di Gioia's Vegetable Crop Science Lab

03/29/2026

Check our latest research on low-cost MOS gas sensors led by Ali Ahmad:
https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adsr.202500112

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11278484

Low-cost MOS (metal-oxide semiconductor) gas sensors are redefining smart farming. This review explores their role across soil monitoring, crop health assessment, and post-harvest management. By addr...

03/29/2026

https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/low-cost-sensor-system-could-warn-farmers-salt-stress-plants

Excessive salts in soil can restrict a plant’s water and nutrient uptake, hindering crop growth and reducing yields on roughly 30% of U.S. irrigated land. To help growers identify and mitigate salt stress, in a proof-of-concept study, a team led by Penn State researchers built a low-cost sensor sy...

10/30/2025

New research article from our lab - reporting on how agronomic enrichment and radiation intensity influence zinc bioaccessibility (assessed through in vitro digestion) and overall nutrient density in peas and radish
The article is free to download using this link:

10/09/2025

09/26/2025

It has been a while since I shared updates on our work - it has been a very busy season - we are continuing to work on a lot of fronts and technologies/solutions.
Here I am sharing pictures from a series of Extension/Outreach events that engaged everyone working in the lab, and especially the graduate students and postdoc, who, over the last few weeks, have not missed a single opportunity to share and communicate in various forms and to different audiences all the great things we are working on.

For Penn State Ag Progress Days, a 3-day event, we prepared an exhibit on Plasma Agriculture, we offered daily tours of our research on organic vegetable production, and organized an in-depth 2-hour workshop + research tour for the PA Organic Agriculture Working Group.

Last week, for National Teach in Ag Day, we participated in the Plant Yourself in Ag project and shared our research and engaged in different ways with groups of high school students, attempting to inspire them to pursue a career in agriculture.

Today, we had the honor of sharing our work on improving the efficiency of Controlled Environment Agriculture systems, Plasma Agriculture, and Agronomic Biofortification with elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels, industry partners, and other stakeholders.

Each of these events requires a great effort; it takes a lot of planning and preparation, but all the feedback we got, the opportunity to share our knowledge, and the engagement with people interested in our work is priceless. It is also a great learning opportunity for us and gives us motivation to continue our work even when it is challenging.

For me, there is nothing more exciting than working/doing research with a team of great young scientists, learning every day, and having the opportunity to share our knowledge, inspiring people, advancing and transferring the solutions we are developing to the final users, empowering them to do more.

For this, I would like to thank the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences for offering us the great opportunity to participate in these Extension/Outreach initiatives. I am also grateful to all our funding agencies and private partners who support our work.

06/20/2025

Interested to learn about microgreen production and marketing strategies for microgreens?
Do not miss the opportunity to register for a full-day in-person workshop, with hands-on demonstration and activities which will take place at The Hill Farm in Harrisburg, PA, on Tuesday, July 1st, 2025.
The workshop is organized and conducted by Penn State researchers and Extension educators.
Register by June 25th!

Learn microgreens production, lighting techniques, and marketing strategies in this hands-on workshop designed for growers and urban agriculture enthusiasts.

03/15/2025

Great job done by The Culinary Breeding Network and Smarties.bio introducing Radicchio to the large public - check this video:

People don’t give much thought to the purple leaves in their salad mix, but maybe they should! That bitter, leafy vegetable is likely radicchio — and it's ha...

03/03/2025

https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/new-computer-vision-system-can-guide-specialty-crops-monitoring

Soilless growing systems inside greenhouses, known as controlled environment agriculture, promise to advance the year-round production of high-quality specialty crops, according to an interdisciplinary research team at Penn State. But to be competitive and sustainable, this advanced farming method w...

02/05/2025

The 2025 Mid-Atlantic Fruit & Vegetable Convention taking place at Hershey, PA last week was really intense but a great opportunity for us to share our work, meet with growers, industry professionals and colleagues and exchange information and updates. Before the conference started we had a great full-day workshop on in which we went through different aspects (production, quality, food safety, economics, marketing, and current research) bringing in the expertise of researchers, microgreen growers, crop consultants, and extension educators. During the three-day convention different members of our lab and some of our collaborators had the opportunity to present our work in different sessions, including the Soil Health, Hydroponics, Vegetable Greenhouse, and two High tunnel sessions, which resulted in over 10 presentations... We also had the opportunity to invite multiple vegetable growers and colleagues to share their experience through presentations or grower panels. We made multiple connections and left the convention with renewed energy and motivation to continue our work at Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences with the support of Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association

01/19/2025

One week left to register for a great full-day pre-convention workshop on that will take place in Hershey, PA at the Hershey Lodge in occasion of the 2025 Mid-Atlantic Fruit & Vegetable Convention on Monday, January 27, 2025 Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences

Spread the word and use the QR code or the following link to register: https://mafvc.org/

01/03/2025

Happy new year!

For us it is exciting to start the new year with another great study published in the #1 journal in Horticulture:
"A recursive segmentation model for bok choy growth monitoring with Internet of Things (IoT) technology in controlled environment agriculture" .

Using bok choy as a test crop, this study shows the potential of integrating IoT (Internet of Things), sensors and computer vision (low cost cameras) technologies for the real-time plant growth monitoring and analysis in Controlled Environment Agricultural (CEA) systems.
The main innovation introduced by this work is the implementation of a recursive image segmentation model (essentially an automated image analysis procedure) that processes sequential image data to accurately track temporal changes in plant growth.

These solutions allow the automated and continuous monitoring of the crop which may enable us to make more informed decisions and manage crops more efficiently.

In the future these solutions may allow the early detection of pest issues as well as the continuous monitoring of the plant water and nutrient status.

Also this work is the fruit of a great collaboration between our lab and the Penn State Ag Robotic & Sensing Lab led by Dr. Long He.

One thing we love to do, and will continue to pursue in 2025, is collaborating with colleagues that have expertise complementary to ours. Collaborations across disciplines allow us to learn more and to develop new knowledge and solutions at the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences

The article is free to download here (only for the first 50 days):
https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1kN0ncFCSbIeS

This work was/is funded through the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Grant