Introduction

Our project is committed to truly acting on the world, starting from reality, and finally returning to reality. To this end, we have designed Pastry Mode to guide our actions.

Pastry Mode is a loop mode from a large range (plane) to a specific (point)，which symbolizes coming from the masses and going back to the masses. Because plane and point spell the same as pastry in Chinese, we affectionately call it Pastry Mode.

Figure 1. Pastry Mode of Various Parts

The whole process of IHPs can't be carried out without our Pastry Mode. It lets us know how ignorant we are as designers. The process of integrated human practices has greatly changed the design and final vision of our project, and we learned and gained a lot through this process. Although our interpretation of the Pastry Mode is different at each stage of the project, the thinking mode displayed by the Pastry Mode and the underlying logic are the same - coming from the masses and going back to the masses.

Figure 2. Our HP Cycle

Topics Selection & Preliminary Survey

Pastry Mode

Figure 3. Pastry Mode for Topics Selection & Preliminary Survey

1. Survey&Discussion: When selecting topics, we not only brainstormed within the team, but also solicited ideas from our relatives and friends to understand the real problems they hope to solve, so as to make our brainstorming more extensive.
2. Analysis: We summarized our brainstorming and collected ideas, found their common points and confirmed our values to selected the topic.
3. Confirmation: We investigated the current situation of rice sheath blight to confirm whether this problem exists in reality and whether it really needs to be solved.
4. Decision: Based on the information we have received, we have confirmed our project topic and stakeholders.

1. Survey&Discussion

1.1 A Meeting to Learn About RRI

Xushan Zhang
Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Researcher in Science Technology & Society

Miss.Zhang led us to deeply analyze RRI(Responsible Research and Innovation) in the context of China because RRI has different acceptance in different regions. Under the special background of our country, we need to find the most suitable method and strategy for China.

She also emphasized to us the specific conditions of IHPs (Integrated Human Practices): the flow of knowledge in this process must be two-way. Simply holding a science lecture doesn't belong to IHPs. We need to have a behavior of ideas gathering and reacting to the project.

Through this conference, we gained insight into the meaning of RRI and IHPs.

Due to the great respect and trust of the public in science, there are few questions and feedback from people in our country. Therefore, we actively went out of the laboratory to form two-way communication with stakeholders and the citizens. We collected their feedback and opinions to redesign our project. And this step was carried out throughout the whole competition.

1.2 Brainstorm Widely

Brainstorming is undoubtedly very interesting. In this process, you can freely express any idea: It can be something that you think is interesting or meaningful; It can be the things you want to solve around you, or the things you see on the news; It can also be new technologies or new breakthroughs that you have seen recently, which can be further applied or improved.

We conducted brain burst activity for up to 2 months, found problems in real life, and tried to solve them in a synthetic way. In order to have more ideas to conduct more extensive brainstormings, we learned more about the problems to be solved in reality by chatting with relatives and friends.

Figure 4. Brainstorming Moment

2. Analysis

2.1 Value Confirmation

We gradually confirmed our values during our brainstorming, as shown in the following figure:

Figure 5. Our Value Tree

2.2 Confirm our investigative principles

After listening to Miss Zhang's RRI sharing session, we realized the importance of ethical and responsible research, and immediately formulated the principles related to informed consent and privacy protection.

Before we interviewed each expert or scholar, we provided our informed consent form or oral interview to let them know what we need to document and how they may be quoted in the wiki. All the page content you can see now is consented to. For those who do not want to put their real picture and position, we are very respectful and firmly implement their choice.

For all the students, farmers and other ordinary people we interviewed, we also tried our best to protect their rights. All interview photos on the page were taken with the consent of the subject. For the interview results, we also chose to present them in the form of data, without revealing the specific information of the interviewers.

2.3 Common Point in Brainstorming

Meanwhile, we found some surprising similarities in brainstorming.

Thus, Rice sheath blight(ShB), which we learned about while chatting with our farmer relatives, caught our attention. Because It was highly related to our common point mentioned above:

3. Confirmation

3.1 Interview with Agricultural Experts

Institute of
Agricultural Sciences
Institute of Agricultural Sciences

Through the interview with the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, we learned about the lack of convenient detection instruments for rice sheath blight: the primary infection site of rice sheath blight is the base of rice crops, so it is extremely difficult to detect the disease by visual observation. At the same time, the existing detection methods are time-consuming, laborious, expensive, requiring professionals and precision instruments, and are not friendly to the farmers.

She introduced Jinggangmycin, a biological pesticide widely used to treat rice sheath blight, which has been used for 20-30 years. Jinggangmycin is a kind of antibiotic pesticide. Long term single use of Jinggangmycin has made the pathogen resistant, so Jinggangmycin has lost its effect in some areas. At the same time, the common chemical pesticide residues easily have adverse effects on the environment and biology.

Miss. Li
Agricultural Director of Boluo County, Guangdong Province

From these interviews, we learned that rice sheath blight is really a problem that needs to be solved. So far there has been lack of convenient detection instruments for rice sheath blight. In addition, Jinggangmycin, which is used to treat rice sheath blight, has become increasingly ineffective, and the pathogen has developed drug resistance.

3.2 Investigation on the Severity of ShB

We investigated the severity of rice sheath blight and the results were as follows. With more than 3.5 billion people around the world living on rice as their staple food, the damage caused by rice sheath blight is undoubtedly huge at a time when the population is booming and the food supply cannot be satisfied.

In China alone, about 15 million to 20 million hectares of rice growing areas have been affected by rice sheath blight (ShB), resulting in a loss of 6 million tons of grain per year.
In the United States, the yield loss of the experimental field planting ShB sensitive rice varieties is about 50%.
In 2022, Chinese Ministry of Agriculture reported that rice sheath blight was rampant in southern China, with an estimated area of up to 240 million per mu.

4. Decision

1. We decided to choose the topic of rice sheath blight.

2. We identified our stakeholders.

Farmers

Farmers and farm managers have rich experience in pests and diseases, and their criteria for pesticide selection and purchase will become an important part of our own project measurement. Through them, we can also learn how the current daily operation of the rice industry is, so as to make our product design more practical.

Agricultural and forestry science and technology workers are responsible for agricultural scientific research and technical training, organization of agricultural scientific research projects and the selection and implementation of technology extension projects, and the dissemination of new agricultural technologies and new pesticides. By communicating with them, we can ask them to evaluate our project and get ideas and

Agricultural Experts

Companies

Our stakeholders are mainly agricultural companies and biological companies.

Agricultural companies are bellwether under the background of agricultural industrialization, which has mastered a series of factors of high-quality agricultural production. Keeping close contact with agricultural companies not only enables us to understand the latest technologies in the agricultural fields, but also provides us with a platform to try out our hardware and software.

Biological companies have the latest information on experiments and theories in the field of synthetic biology. We lack the experience to productize our strains. Therefore, a regular biological company can assist us in the manufacturing process and provide useful advice on possible large-scale corporate production.

In the process of advancing our project, we will often meet various difficulties and obstacles in the experimental process, so experimental experts are indispensable to us. Therefore, we need to keep long-term contact with experts in plant physiology, molecular biology, biotechnology and other fields, and timely consult the perplexity in experimental aspects to ensure the orderly progress of the experimental part of the project.

Scientific Experts

Government Agricultural Sector

In agriculture, the government's policy is very important, and farmers' planting also follows the government's guidance. Government officials will organize the allocation of agricultural resources and the production of agricultural products. They will also supervise the quality of pesticides and fertilizers. Therefore, it is very necessary to communicate with the government departments, which can help us understand the relevant information and policies of agriculture, which is conducive to our project design and the actual implementation.

In China, rice is closely related to the food, clothing and health of all people. So practically everyone who lives on rice is our stakeholder. We need to understand the preferences and perceptions of the consumers who buy rice, their requirements for the quality of rice, and the amount of money they are willing to pay for it, to help us establish standards for our projects.

General Public

Project Design&Redesign

Pastry Mode

Figure 9. Pastry Mode for Project Design&Redesign

1.Survey: After investigating the defects of the existing schemes for preventing rice sheath blight, during the design of the project, we were faced with a choice: transgenic rice or new biological pesticide? So we conducted a survey of laws and regulations and interviewed the public's opinions.
2.Design: Our investigation content led us to choose the method of biopesticide rather than transgenic rice to complete our first-generation project design.
3.Confirmation: After the initial design was completed, we confirmed with our stakeholders. Frustratingly, from the information they provided, we found deficiencies and inadequacies in the design of our project.
4.Redesign: Through the information, we summarized the deficiencies in the project design, decided which needs or values to prioritize in our project’s design, and redesigned our project. Although this process was tortuous, our project design was greatly improved as a result.

1. Survey

1.1 Information from the Preliminary Survey

From the content of our previous interview, we can find that there are two main defects in the prevention and treatment of rice sheath blight: First, there is no cheap and portable testing equipment as yet unknown. The existing detection methods are time-consuming, laborious, expensive, requiring professionals and precision instruments, and are not friendly to the farmers. Second, Jinggangamycin has gradually lost its effect due to drug resistance.

In general, agriculture currently lacks good testing equipment and environmentally sustainable pesticides.

1.2 Investigation of the laws and regulations

According to the investigation of our laws and regulations on transgenic crops, we found that China does not allow the sale of any transgenic rice. Among food crops, only two strains of genetically modified rice are allowed to be grown but not sold. The only food crops allowed to be grown and sold are tomatoes genetically modified to withstand storage and papaya genetically modified to resist ring spot virus.

In China, there is a standard for pesticide management. New products should be registered from the moment they are ready for production, followed by a series of tests on ingredients, safety and efficacy. Registering a new chemical pesticide so it can be sold costs 10 to 20 million yuan(1.4 million to 2.8 million dollars), while biological pesticides cost 7 to 8 million yuan(0.98 million to 1.11 million dollars).

1.3 Street Interview

We conducted a street interview in Shenzhen and anonymously interviewed some netizens on the Internet. 79% of the 197 citizens we interviewed were more likely to buy rice treated with new biological pesticides than genetically modified rice. The result shows that Chinese people's rejection of transgenic rice is quite strong.

Figure 10. Some Photos of our Street Interview

2. Design

Combined the result of legal investigation and city interview, in order to make our final project fall to the ground, we chose to design a new biological pesticide to treat rice sheath blight. Finally, the preliminary design of our project came out: Firstly, the e-nose detects special odor molecular gases released by the infected rice. Secondly, the engineered Trichoderma atroviride was used to kill pathogenic bacterium——Rhizoctonia solani.

Figure 11. E-nose System & Trichoderma atroviride Attack

3. Confirmation

After the preliminary design was completed, it was time for the stakeholders to evaluate our projects. We interviewed the stakeholders and actually visited the real rice fields, industrial parks and the government. In this process we gained a great deal of information that had a profound impact on our project.

3.1 Farmers

As the main people in agricultural production for a long time, farmers are the direct users of the new technology after its implementation. They are important stakeholders in our project. We spoke to an experienced rice farmer in an industrial park who gave us a lot of information about rice and pesticides:

The peak of the common diseases of rice usually occurs 20 days after transplanting, so prevention at this time is very important.
They don't care about the ecological pollution caused by the use of chemical pesticides and think the environmental concerns are the business of government. The pesticides they use are given by the government. Moreover, they need to report the area and dosage of the drug.
Jinggangmycin did not work well in his farmland because overuse of antibiotics led to a large number of R.solani producing antibodies. Now they mix Jinggangmycin with a more effective, but more expensive chemical pesticide called Aimiao.
Farmers are open to the development of new biopesticides, saying the most important thing about pesticides is ease of use, high effectiveness and low cost. He is willing to provide a testing platform for our product so that we can apply it in his paddies to check the effect.

Figure 12. Communicate with Farmers

3.2 Government

According to the farmers' answers, the farmers' planting is carried out in accordance with the government's guidance. Government officials will organize the allocation of agricultural resources and the production of agricultural products. They will also supervise the quality of pesticides and fertilizers. Therefore, we had a communication with the agricultural department of Boluo County Government in Huizhou City, Guangdong Province.

Local rice cultivation uses a mixture of pesticide and chemical fertilizer, which costs about 6.25 yuan (about 0.88 dollars) per kilogram for an mu of land. These days, as the cost of farming continues to rise, farming is becoming less profitable.
A month or so after planting rice, farmers use drones to spray a variety of compound drugs and fertilizers simultaneously on a large scale. The compound drug is a mixture of various pest control drugs, including biological pesticides and chemical pesticides; Fertilizer is usually a mixture of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash. It is worth mentioning that a large amount of nitrogen fertilizer can easily cause rice sheath blight. Such spraying methods not only cause fertilizer loss and environmental pollution, but also require higher costs. Therefore, how to reduce the use of fertilizers and more precise use of drugs is the current and future agricultural needs.

Figure 13. The Government Interview

3.3. Industrial Park

Ban Yongkang is a famous private food processing enterprise in China. The company includes rice planting, storage, processing and sales. It forms the operation mode of self-sale and whole-process product tracking service. We visited the industrial park of the enterprise, learned about the process of the rice industrial chain, and inquired about the enterprise's related problems in rice management.

Ban Yongkang has corresponding deployment for digital agriculture. The company has a special person responsible for the research and development of testing equipment, which shows that the trend of agricultural management is getting closer to precision and digitization.
We got their approval when we came up with the concept of e-nose early detection. Because the industrial park pays more attention to profit, detecting ShB in advance can effectively prevent its spread and reduces the amount of pesticides used. Therefore, reduce costs.
The enterprise will produce different quality rice for different customers. In addition, when it comes to managing farmland, they hire professionals to work for them.

Figure 14. Visiting Photos of Industrial Parks

3.4 Agricultural Technology Promotion Center

The Agricultural Technology Extension Center is responsible for promoting green prevention and control of crop diseases or pests. The Center also works to improve the quality and efficiency of agricultural production, promoting the green and high-quality development of the planting industry. From the Agricultural Technology Extension Center, we learned how the green prevention and control work of rice is carried out, as well as the possible problems and corresponding solutions in the actual technology extension process.

We have learned about the Three Control technology of rice, which is aimed at such prominent problems as large application amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, low utilization rate, threat to rice food safety, and heavy environmental pollution in rice production. The Rice Research Institute of Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) jointly developed an efficient and safe fertilizer application and supporting technology system featuring fertilizer control, seedling control, disease and insect control (Three Control).
The staff of the Agricultural Technology Extension Center shared with us their difficulties in extending technology to farmers: most of the farmers are relatively poorly educated and it would be difficult to explain the theory. The time span for the actual promotion of a technology is often very long, and it generally takes about 10-20 years for its full popularization.
They also shared with us possible solutions to these difficulties: extending technology can start with younger farmers, who tend to be more receptive. At the same time, priority can be given to a farmer as a demonstration field for technology promotion. When other farmers find out that the technology is real, they will be eager to learn about it.

Figure 15. Visit Agricultural Technology Promotion Center

4. Redesign

4.1 Deficiencies in Project Assumptions

Rice sheath blight faces the possibility of large-scale outbreaks every year, and our project lacks alternatives to current prevention methods.
In actual planting, various fertilizers and pesticides are often mixed and sprayed without limit, which brings a lot of waste and environmental pollution. How to reduce the use of fertilizer and more precise drug use is the biggest problem facing rice cultivation at present.
Trichoderma atroviride can only kill the R. solani which has not entered the rice. We need to add a new drug to treat the infected rice.

4.2 Identify Priority Needs and Values

For farmers, they think our electronic nose detection is unnecessary, but the relevant leaders of enterprises and the staff of agricultural technology extension center highly approve of our electronic nose.
Chemical pesticides are abundant and cheap, industrial parks and farmers are more inclined to use cheap and effective pesticides, but the government and agricultural technology extension center think it is necessary to research and develop new environmentally friendly pesticides, but the price should not be too high.

We analyzed those choices from the perspective of sociology. People with different identities will have different values, so their choices will be different. Although we cannot make our design meet the requirements of every stakeholder, we can select and integrate their perspectives and priorities to make our project more realistic.

We put environmental sustainability at the top of our list of values, and the cost associated with it behind it, because we believe that with the development of science and technology, the production cost of technology will always decrease. High costs should not preclude the possibility of a better treatment.

4.3 Final Design

This series of field visits and surveys had a profound impact on our project. We not only increased the steps of our project, but also changed our project positioning according to the actual development needs -- to follow the road of digital and precise agriculture.

Our final project design is as follows:

Prevention and blockade: Mixed preparation of Trichoderma atroviride engineering bacteria to cut off the spread of R.solani and fertilize rice (to solve the lack of prevention methods and reduce the abuse of fertilizer).
Detection: Early detection of rice sheath blight based on the combination of electronic nose daily field detection and LAMP accurate detection (making precise application of pesticides possible).
Treatment: RNAi drugs specifically kill R.solani in rice. (used to treat diseased rice).

Developing Our Project

Pastry Mode

Figure 16. Pastry Mode for Developing Our Project

In the following series of surveys, there is no big change to our project framework. Pastry Mode works like this in the stage: we are constantly conducting feedback to connect and share with stakeholders. You can see our communication with scientists and how they influenced our project to help our design iterate.

Pesticide of Trichoderma

Survey

Trichoderma, an antagonistic fungus, is one of the most widely studied biocontrol agents (BCA). These saprophytic fungi are present in most soils and have a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with plants. Most Trichoderma species can produce a variety of bioactive substances that have antagonistic effects on plant pathogenic fungi and can improve the stress resistance of crops. All these advantages make them the most suitable BCA.

After an actual investigation in a paddy field, we found that the paddy field had so much long grass and duckweeds that the water surface fluidity was poor. We were concerned that Trichoderma would not converge well at the rice aquatic interface. Therefore, we enhanced the expression of Trichoderma hydrophobic protein EPL1 and designed a special encapsulation material, TACE.

Figure 17. What We Actually See With Rice

Version 1.0

The first generation of TACE is small white particles with diameters of 40 meshes and 80 meshes. The matrix material of TACE1.0 is a starch Graft Acrylate, which belongs to Super Absorbent Polymer (SAP). The inner structure of TACE 1.0 is a network of molecular chains with a large number of hydrophilic groups. TACE 1.0 has strong water absorption and retention.

When using, the spore powder is added with water according to the dosing ratio of 1:200 to prepare the liquid microbial inoculum by farmers. Then add TACE1.0 according to the liquid-said ratio of 45:1, wait for at least 2min for full adsorption. According to the proportion of 0.1g dry TACE 1.0 per rice plant, the field dissemination was carried out by UAV or manual.

Feedback

1. Government Officials / Government Technicians

We briefly introduced our Trichoderma engineering bacteria and suction powder to the government, hoping to gain their suggestions.

Government

Most of the existing drug delivery methods are electric pumps or UAV spraying. However, spore powder after suction becomes granulate paste, which is not suitable for the existing spraying method. Moreover, the separate sale of spore powder and TACE1.0 also resulted in the need for users to mix it themselves. The operation complexity needed to be reduced.

2. Trichoderma Related Companies

In order to let professionals evaluate our wrapping materials, we found a manufacturer specializing in the production of fungal preparations and communicated with their technical staff.Unfortunately, the production and treatment of trichoderma cannot be shared with us as commercial secrets. However, he gave us some valuable suggestions on improving the activity of trichoderma.

3. Expert In Pharmacy

Since we encountered the problem that tablets are easy to become powder in the production process, we asked Mr.Xiong Wei, a pharmacy expert, about the process of making tablets.

The reason why the tablets are powdered after being broken may be the wrong choice of adhesive, or the effect of the adhesive is not good. I suggest you try PVP adhesive.

Wei Xiong
Expert In Pharmacy

Version 2.0

Therefore, we did a comprehensive upgrade and iteration of TACE. The second generation of sustained release skeleton preparation with Hypromellose (HPMC) as the main component is sheet preparation made of drug and inert skeleton by mixing and pressing technology. So users can spray suction powder particles evenly in the field in the form of UAV spraying or manual fertilizer pumping, and there is no need to mix in advance.

According to the advice of technologists, sucrose, dextrina and soluble starch were added to the composition of TACE2.0 to improve spore activity. At the same time, we set the Trichoderma's storage temperature at 5°C and the moisture at 7% to maximize the number of surviving spores.