Are Your Plants Hungry or Thirsty? New Tech Helps You Tap In

Plants don’t usually say much. So, it can be harder to understand what they need compared to more vocal organisms such as humans. But, just like us and our nerves, plants send important messages from cell to cell via electrical signals. Now, with technology that helps analyze those signals, we may better understand what’s really eating at our greener brethren.

When plants get stressed because of hunger, thirst, or insect attacks, they relay signals about that stress between cells. Roots may send signals when the plant is thirsty, for instance. Until now, farmers have relied solely on secondary indicators for finding problems with their crops, for instance by checking under roots for insects or looking for signs of drought, which can be labor-intensive. A new technology, PhytlSigns, pairs this electrophysiological knowledge with artificial intelligence to allow plants to “tell” growers when they need water, nutrients, or pesticides.

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The scientists at Vivent, the Swiss deep tech company that created PhytlSigns, have custom-built algorithms that cater to specific stressors. Plants are physically hooked up to electrodes, like a human on an ECG machine, making it possible to remotely view up-to-date information about their basil, eggplant, or cannabis plants.

One client, an agrochemical company, previously relied on visual indicators to see if their fungicides had killed fungal diseases that were invading plants. But, with PhytlSigns’ algorithm built for fungal stressors, the company saw that plants were still sending distressed signals even after it looked like the fungus had cleared. Another client was able to more accurately identify when parasitic eelworms, or nematodes, were infesting and attacking plants, thanks to an algorithm built for nematode stress. “They can see, in real time, something happening in the soil that we’ve never been able to see before,” says Carrol Plummer, Co-founder and CEO of PhytlSigns.

For more, continue reading at FastCompany.com.

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