HARNESSING THE POWER
OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

TO PROTECT PLANTS & THE ENVIRONMENT

About the project

Digital technologies for plant health, early detection, territory surveillance & phytosanitary measures

STELLA aims to develop a holistic digital system (STELLA PSS) to aid in the early warning and detection of regulated pests together with a response strategy by using modern sensing technology and Artificial Intelligence.

The STELLA PSS will be tested over three years at field, farm and regional levels across 6 Use Case Pilots (UCPs) covering arable, orchard and vineyard crops as well as large, difficult to reach areas (forests). STELLA focuses on eight (8) different RNQP and quarantine diseases transmitted in a variety of ways, that expand across 4 European countries with different climate and geological characteristics and New Zealand. STELLA will perform capacity-building activities in order to equip farmers, agronomists, and stakeholders with the necessary skills to use the STELLA system and encourage them to adopt eco-friendly crop protection methods.

Policy recommendations generated through the STELLA PSS findings, will be targeted to policy makers and decision makers aiming to support the European Commission’s goals of reducing pesticide use, managing priority plant pest outbreaks and promoting digitalisation of EU agriculture and forestry. A networking strategy will be developed to exchange ideas, leverage existing knowledge and enable links with relevant organisations, citizens, networks, projects, and initiatives.

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Real Time Pest surveillance system with 3 subsystems

Early warning system using novel forecasting models and IoT sensors.
Pest detection system using drones, satellites, and a smartphone application.
Pest response system providing data-driven recommendations for containment and counteractive measures.

About Us

Key objectives

Advance the current solutions in pest monitoring and surveillance by systematically experimenting in emerging digital technologies and proposing disruptive methodologies and tools.

Develop novel plant pest monitoring strategies encompassing and fusing the latest trends and developments in AI, IoT, remote and proximal sensing.

Test and validate the performance of plant pest monitoring and recommendation solutions through real life UCPs in commercial farming systems and large, difficult to reach areas (forests).

Strengthen the capacities of stakeholders in adopting digital technologies for early detection, monitoring, and plant pest prevention and building synergies with established pest response systems, farmer cooperatives, CAP networks, organizations, citizen groups, and other projects to enhance knowledge exchange.

Develop policy recommendations to support EU and Associated Countries' plant health policies and maximize the use of digital technologies for plant health.