Plants Can Order Water Thanks to an Invention at the CU Boulder

A new invention from the University of Colorado at Boulder may give crops the ability to tell farmers when they need water and how much they need. A report from CU-Boulder tells of a tiny sensor that can be attached to the leaves of the plants to indicate the thickness of the leaves. Leaf thickness is an indicator of a plant not getting enough water and being under stress as a result.

Using the Internet, the sensors could send information to computers which could, in turn, be linked to irrigation systems. The system could provide water when it is needed and eliminate unnecessary water usage. "We think this is an exciting technology, and the implications for the agriculture industry are enormous," CU-Boulder quotes Hans-Dieter Seelig of CU-Boulder's BioServe Space Technology Center. The sensor technology grew in part out of Seelig's doctoral thesis.

Richard Stoner, who founded and is president of AgriHouse, a company which has exclusive rights to negotiate a license with CU during the next 12 months, told CU-Boulder, "What we are developing is a non-intrusive device that gently rests on the plants and lets them interface with the digital world."

As CU-Boulder describes it, the sensor is small, less than one-tenth the size of a postage stamp and contains a chip that can signal computers wirelessly to indicate the need for water. The computers, in turn, can start specific irrigation systems to provide a set amount of water for a set period of time. Stoner notes that farmers today rely on systems that include "a good eye and a green thumb. But this new siystem can tell a farmer precisely when a plant's water uptake potential is at its peak, which could conceivably decrease the number of watering days."

This tight management of water usage is important because one estimate says that about 40% of the total freshwater usage in the United States goes to agriculture. About 60% of all crops in the Unted States are irrigated, using water from different sources. When water usage is cut, expenses also decrease.

Another incentive for using the sensor system is the increasing hostility among states over the use of water. According to CU-Boulder, lawsuits have been filed against Colorado and Nebraska for violating interstate water use agreements and overusing the Arkansas and Republican Rivers.

In testing the sensor, CU-Boulder says researchers experimented with cowpea, but believe that the technology can be used on other crops, including corn, wheat, potatoes, sugar beets, and pinto beans. Seelig's technology was originally designed for monitoring the water usage on long term space flights, and personnel from CU-Boulder have been involved with research payloads on 25 space flights.

Sources:

www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2007/244.html
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1850324/posts