Team:Korea-SIS
SORA
Save Our Rice Anywhere
Abstract
Rice is a staple food for many countries in Asia. Rice needs to be dried and stored under specific conditions after harvest. If not, it loses its merchantability and affects the total yield. In Sri Lanka, it affects the livelihood of 1.8 million farmers and the lack of proper post-harvest technology is costing them 2393 million dollars annually. The fungi that are present in the storage of rice are Aspergillus spp. In this project, we establish a stringent post-harvest management system for rice by measuring the concentration of aflatoxin B1, a toxin produced by Aspergillus spp. To measure the concentration of AFB1, we used the enzyme, cytochrome P450 1A2. Reactions between AFB1 and CYP1A2 result in compounds with epoxide residue, which can be used for the detection. Here, we also proposed a nonparametric MARS model designed to capture possible inter-dependent effects of environmental factors on fungal infection of stored rice.