CIDA seminar: Collins Bugingo - "Seeds as an Upstream Data Frontier: Exploring Opportunities for Digital Agriculture Collaboration"

Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture – Spring 2026 Seminar Series:
Seeds as an Upstream Data Frontier: Exploring Opportunities for Digital Agriculture Collaboration

Collins Bugingo, Assistant Professor, School of Integrative Plant Science, Horticulture Section, Cornell AgriTech

Monday, April 6th,12:00 – 1:00 pm – Presentation with Q&A

Abstract: 

Digital agriculture has made remarkable advances in monitoring crops once they are established in the field, yet many high leverage decisions are made much earlier—at the seed stage—often with limited data and few digital tools. In this seminar, I will share how my seed biology and pathology research has led me to view seeds as an underexplored source of early biological signals with potential relevance for digital agriculture, decision support, and environmental stewardship.

Rather than presenting finished digital solutions, I will outline a set of emerging ideas and ongoing experiments that integrate nondestructive seed diagnostics—such as volatile organic compound profiling, imaging, and molecular assays—with early machine learning efforts aimed at risk classification. These examples are intended to highlight both opportunities and gaps, particularly where biological complexity, environmental context, and scale present challenges that seed scientists cannot solve alone.

A central goal of the seminar is to invite discussion with the digital agriculture community around how AI, sensing, modeling, and visualization approaches might be better integrated upstream, before planting, to support risk-based decisions in seed health, treated seed stewardship, and water quality protection. I hope this talk will serve as a starting point for identifying shared questions, complementary expertise, and potential collaborations across seed science, digital agriculture, and extension.

Bio:

Collins Bugingo is Principal Investigator of the Seed Biology & Technology Program, where he is building an interdisciplinary research program focused on seed pathology and the broader biology of seeds. His work seeks to uncover how seeds interact with pathogens and how those interactions affect seed health and quality.

With a foundation in pathology, Bugingo is developing research that will span the full spectrum of seed biology: dormancy, vigor, development, germination, storage, and the physiological responses of seeds to biotic and abiotic stress. His laboratory aims to integrate classical seed biology with modern analytical tools to generate insights that advance seed science, strengthen quality assurance, and support sustainable agriculture.

Background on the Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture: 

An interdisciplinary group of Cornell University faculty began meeting in early 2017 to formulate an Initiative for Digital Agriculture, believing that Cornell is uniquely equipped to lead in this emerging arena that will benefit the public for generations. We define DA to mean the application of computational and information technologies coupled with nanotechnology, biology, systems engineering and economics to both the research and operational sides of agriculture and food production. With approximately 100 faculty from 5 Cornell colleges participating, we are collaborating with external stakeholders to shape and implement a research agenda for DA that will build a pipeline of discovery and innovations for the next 10+ years.