{"id":81750,"date":"2026-03-24T08:22:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T12:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/?p=81750"},"modified":"2026-04-15T08:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:24:16","slug":"visits-highlight-n-c-psis-place-as-global-ag-innovation-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/news\/visits-highlight-n-c-psis-place-as-global-ag-innovation-hub\/","title":{"rendered":"Visits Highlight N.C. PSI\u2019s Place as Global Ag Innovation Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n<p>World-class scientists from both New Zealand and Serbia visited North Carolina State University\u2019s Plant Sciences Building in March, strengthening collaborations to advance agriculture and protect natural resources through interdisciplinary research.<br><br>While the Serbian scientists visited with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\">N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative<\/a> partners in the <a href=\"https:\/\/steps-center.org\/\">STEPS (Science and Technologies for Phosphorus Sustainability) Center,<\/a> five plant scientists from the Bioeconomy Science Institute New Zealand joined N.C. PSI-affiliated faculty and staff members for five days of collaborative discussion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/global.ncsu.edu\/\">NC&#160;State Office of Global Engagement<\/a> and the I<a href=\"https:\/\/ai2ear.wordpress.ncsu.edu\/\">nternational Collaboration to Accelerate Integration of Engineering, Plant Sciences and Agricultural Research Using Artificial Intelligence,<\/a> or AI2EAR, sponsored the New Zealanders\u2019 visit.<br><br>On Monday, the researchers joined NC&#160;State faculty members in a daylong digital twins workshop, followed up with meetings among faculty members and with different NC&#160;State\u00a0programs, then wrapped up on Friday with agricultural site tours in Western North Carolina.<br><br>As N.C. PSI Director of Innovation Partnerships Kathleen Denya explained, the goal of the BSI-N.C. PSI collaboration is designed to spark problem-solving digital twins projects that benefit agricultural communities in New Zealand and North Carolina.<br><br>Digital twins research for agriculture brings together artificial intelligence, remote sensing and Internet-of-Things data to simulate \u201cwhat-if\u201d scenarios and predict outcomes related to plant performance, environmental impacts, use of resources such as fertilizers and water, and more.<br><br>Researchers from BSI and NC&#160;State plan to continue working together as they develop two proposals to develop digital twins \u2013 one for studies on any crop and one specifically for apples production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"<!-- wp:ncst\/dynamic-header {\"block\":\"ncst\/default-post-header\"} -->\n<!-- wp:ncst\/default-post-header {\"caption\":\"Visitors from New Zealand's Bioeconomy Science Institute joined N.C. PSI leaders and faculty affiliates in March for a weeklong exploration of potential partnerships for digital twins research for agriculture.\",\"displayCategoryID\":108} \/-->\n<!-- \/wp:ncst\/dynamic-header -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>World-class scientists from both New Zealand and Serbia visited North Carolina State University\u2019s Plant Sciences Building in March, strengthening collaborations to advance agriculture and protect natural resources through interdisciplinary research.<br><br>While the Serbian scientists visited with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\">N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative<\/a> partners in the <a href=\"https:\/\/steps-center.org\/\">STEPS (Science and Technologies for Phosphorus Sustainability) Center,<\/a> five plant scientists from the Bioeconomy Science Institute New Zealand joined N.C. PSI-affiliated faculty and staff members for five days of collaborative discussion. <\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/global.ncsu.edu\/\">NC State Office of Global Engagement<\/a> and the I<a href=\"https:\/\/ai2ear.wordpress.ncsu.edu\/\">nternational Collaboration to Accelerate Integration of Engineering, Plant Sciences and Agricultural Research Using Artificial Intelligence,<\/a> or AI2EAR, sponsored the New Zealanders\u2019 visit.<br><br>On Monday, the researchers joined NC State faculty members in a daylong digital twins workshop, followed up with meetings among faculty members and with different NC State\u00a0programs, then wrapped up on Friday with agricultural site tours in Western North Carolina.<br><br>As N.C. PSI Director of Innovation Partnerships Kathleen Denya explained, the goal of the BSI-N.C. PSI collaboration is designed to spark problem-solving digital twins projects that benefit agricultural communities in New Zealand and North Carolina.<br><br>Digital twins research for agriculture brings together artificial intelligence, remote sensing and Internet-of-Things data to simulate \u201cwhat-if\u201d scenarios and predict outcomes related to plant performance, environmental impacts, use of resources such as fertilizers and water, and more.<br><br>Researchers from BSI and NC State plan to continue working together as they develop two proposals to develop digital twins \u2013 one for studies on any crop and one specifically for apples production.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World-class scientists from both New Zealand and Serbia visited the Plant Sciences Building in March, strengthening collaborations to advance agriculture and protect natural resources through interdisciplinary research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":81752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"caption\":\"Visitors from New Zealand's Bioeconomy Science Institute joined N.C. PSI leaders and faculty affiliates in March for a weeklong exploration of potential partnerships for digital twins research for agriculture.\",\"displayCategoryID\":108}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[108,107,110,106,114,1],"tags":[],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-81750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty","category-leadership","category-nc-psi","category-partnerships","category-research","category-uncategorized"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":108,"name":"Faculty","slug":"faculty","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":108,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":169,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81750"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81755,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81750\/revisions\/81755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81750"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=81750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}