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| Listening to Plants | |
| Partners in the I.S.T. ‘PLANTS’ project have lodged a patent for new technology developed to provide individual plants or crop with the precise optimal growing conditions by ‘listening’ to the plants and delivering the precise quantity of water, nutrients or pesticides as is necessary. Essentially, plants are controlling the system rather than the reverse. This reduces plant stress and keeps the input of water, nutrients and other plant chemicals to a minimum. The system will have useful applications for growing plants in hostile environments such as space-stations, soil-less environments and closed growing systems. The main partner in the project is Tyndall National Institute, Ireland. The system picks up plants' signals in almost real-time. An infrared camera scans the entire crop canopy and automatically detects when individual plants or groups of plants are getting too hot. Another sensor detects chlorophyll fluorescence that determines the rate at which plants are photosynthesising. These sensors communicate their data through specially developed wireless transceivers. The chips work without wires, contain their own batteries and can communicate over a range of about 10m. Work is being undertaken to considerably lengthen this distance and to find suitable ways for the chip to power itself from solar energy etc. At the heart of the system is the management software called ePlantOS, designed by Computer Technology Institute - Greece, that gathers data and responds in the context of plant and environment. “AlphaGalileo” Dr Anthony Morrissey, Email: anthony.morrissey@tyndall.ie istresults.cordis.lu/ |
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