Thanks to the development of multifunctional electronic patches ‘worn’ by plants that monitor the presence of pathogens and environmental stressors, the technology may be one step closer to ensuring productive and disease-free crops.
Smart agriculture, the use of innovative technologies to provide information on key factors such as water, soil type and disease, is emerging as a means of ensuring global food security.
Plant diseases result in crop losses of approximately 20% to 40% each year, leading to reduced food production as well as species diversity, not to mention the cost of disease control. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, it is estimated that nearly 670 million of her, or 8% of the world’s population, will be undernourished by 2030.
Plant-mounted sensors that can provide real-time, non-invasive monitoring are nothing new. However, existing sensors are limited in what they can monitor, have low sensitivity, and do not detect certain diseases.
Keeping in mind the importance of maintaining healthy crops, researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a more sophisticated electronic patch that can be placed directly on plant leaves to monitor pathogenic infections and environmental stressors. Did.
The patch is tiny, only 1.2 inches (30 mm) long, and made of flexible material that contains sensors and silver nanowire-based electrodes. They are placed on the underside of the leaves of the plant. There are many stomata here, which are the pores through which plants “breathe”. This patch is an upgrade to the previous version that detected plant diseases by measuring volatile organic compounds.
“The new patch incorporates additional sensors that can monitor temperature, environmental humidity, and the amount of water that plants exhale through their leaves,” said study co-author Yong Zhu.
To test the new patch, researchers turned to one of the most widely consumed produce, the humble tomato. Tomato plants are susceptible to many pathogens, including fungi, viruses and bacteria, which severely reduce yield and fruit quality.
Tomatoes housed in greenhouses were infected with three pathogens. early blight, fungal infection; plague caused by fungal-like pathogens called oomycetes. Plants were also exposed to abiotic (abiotic) stressors such as watering, drought, lack of light and high salinity.
Study co-author Qingshan Wei said: “Furthermore, if growers can more quickly identify abiotic stresses such as irrigation water contaminated by saltwater intrusion, they will be able to address the associated challenges and improve crop yields.”
Experimenting with sensor combinations, the researchers used machine learning models to analyze the data to determine which combinations were more effective at identifying disease and stress. We found that the model requires at least three sensors to be most effective.
“The results of detecting all these issues were encouraging overall,” said Wei. “For example, using a combination of three sensors on the patch, we found that TSWV could be detected four days after the plants were first infected. This is a big advantage because it doesn’t start showing.”
Researchers say they are close to making patches that crop growers can use. They plan to make the patch wireless and then test it in the field outside the greenhouse to make sure it works under real-world conditions.
“We are currently looking for industry and agricultural partners to further develop and test this technology,” said Zhu. “This could be an important advance that helps growers prevent small problems from becoming big ones and helps them meet food security challenges in a meaningful way.”
The study was published in a journal scientific progress.
Source: North Carolina State University
