New non-invasive tools to detect plant stress in advance

Scientists from Wageningen University have presented several tools that have been used successfully for early plant stress detection and that can be used for non-invasive plant phenotyping

CropReporter (Phenovation B.V.) is a system that captures images of chlorophyll fluorescence of the whole plant. This system has been used to detect stress due to low night temperature in sweet pepper plants. Stress was detected 2 hours after the onset of cold (early stage), this device showed that the apical tissues were the most affected in the plant. The system was also used to detect stress due to high light and high temperature in Anthurium in order to prevent the occurrence of leaf burn.

PlantEye (Phensopex B.V.) is a 3D laser scanner that gathers morphological information from plants. The measurements of plant height at every hour allowed to detect plant stress due to low night temperature in sweet pepper plants after 6 hours from the onset of cold (early stage).

Micro-moni-PAM (Gademann Instruments GmbH) is an experimental PAM fluorometer which is intended for the online long term monitoring of photosynthetic activity. 24 of these devices were used in a rose crop to help with the management of screening and artificial lighting.

Source: E. Gorbe Sánchez, E. Heuvelink, de Gelder Arie, C. Stanghellini, 'New non-invasive tools for early plant stress detection', 2015, Procedia Environmental Sciences, Vol. 29, pages 249 – 250.

Contacts:
Cecilia Stanghellini
Wageningen UR Greenhouse Horticulture, Wageningen University and Research Centre
Droevendaalsesteeg 1, Building 107
6708 PB, Wageningen
The Netherlands
Email: cecilia.stanghellini@wur.nl

Publication date: Thu 17 Sep 2015