- Title: MIT researchers invent sensor to save water-stressed plants
- Date: 14th December 2017
- Summary: BELTINCI, SLOVENIA (FILE - AUGUST 8, 2013) (REUTERS) WIDE OF FIELD OF DRIED UP CORN AND PUMPKINS PUMPKIN ON GROUND DETAIL OF DRIED-UP LEAF HANDS PICKING CORN FROM STALK AND TAKING APART DRIED CORN FIELD WITH DRIED CORN STALKS AND PUMPKINS
- Embargoed: 28th December 2017 19:01
- Keywords: stoma plants Michael Strano Volodymyr Koman stomata sensor MIT engineers drought plant needs water
- Location: CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES / BELTINCI, SLOVENIA
- City: CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES / BELTINCI, SLOVENIA
- Country: USA
- Topics: Science
- Reuters ID: LVA0087C0W5LN
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Chances are you've never had a conversation with your house plants but if they could talk, what would they say? "Water me."
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come up with a sensor printed on the plant's leaf that allows plants to tell owners when they need water or if they've had too much.
"What we've invented is a sensor that can electronically wire up a pore that's found on the surface of most leaves called the stomata," said Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs professor of chemical engineering at MIT and senior author of the study. "And by turning the opening and closing of this pore into an electrical signal, we can monitor the plant and how it uses water and predict drought in a way that we weren't able to do before. It's the first example of using a micro and nanotechnology to bring this information that the plant has into the electronic world."
The sensor is in the ink printed on top of the stomata - minute pores in the epidermis of the leaf. Copper wires are then attached to the printed ink on the plant so that the conducting strips run over the stomata and measure the rate at which they open and close.
"Stomata pores look a lot like a human eye, they open and they close," said Strano. "When they open, water evaporates from a layer inside the leaf, when they close, it turns off that evaporation. As the plant undergoes a greater and greater extent of water stress, the opening and closing will become slower and slower. You could think of the plant as becoming drowsy and boy, if you can measure that with precision, it's a very good early detector of oncoming drought. You can detect the onset of this water stress long before the tissue starts to be harmed. So you can save the plant."
Droughts wipe out enough produce to feed 81 million people every day for a year - equivalent to the population of Germany, according to the World Bank.
"Ultimately strategies like this could allow us to plant crops that are more and more sensitive to drought, but we're able to mitigate it so we can increase food supply," said Strano. "And I think we're going to need strategies like this if we're going to deal with a changing climate, if drought in certain areas is going to become more frequent. We can use these smarter strategies of directing water as a precious resource to the parts of a field, say, that need it most."
Strano and his team are working on a way to make it easier for people to use and apply these sensors with a sticker. By placing a sticker on the plant's surface, the owner of the plant can read the plant's information wirelessly on his or her phone. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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