Plant-Based Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy for Plant Health Monitoring

Abstract

Food security and increasing agricultural yields have become one of this century’s most essential and challenging topics. The global population is projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, so food production must increase significantly to meet the growing demand. Increasing agricultural yields is one of the ways to address the issue of food security. This can be achieved through various means, such as improving crop varieties, using better agricultural practices, and adopting advanced technologies such as precision agriculture and genetically modified crops. One of the ways to promote this is to improve understanding and activity within plants using electrical methods. This was the objective of the presented research. In this research, a hypothesis for signal conduction through the plant medium is suggested, modeled, and characterized. The results show that this approach could be included where the plant is used as the actual sensor, and changes in its internal activity indicate changes in the environment and the plant’s needs. It hereby allows the detection of water stress, different daylight conditions, and possibly future pathogenic attacks. Another new theoretical representation and approach were also presented and supported with various experimental methods showing that the plant’s physiological response and status can be derived from its electrical characteristics, similar to methods used in plant physiology studies. It paves the path for designing and applying new sensing technologies to promote plant monitoring and serve as an additional method in precision agriculture.