An Environmental Station with Bioimpedance Capabilities for Agricultural Deployment

The majority of recent studies on precision agriculture have focused on a variety of imaging techniques to assess the phenotypical state of crops. This approach is limited by the time delay between the stressor occurrence and the visible physiological change and the dependence of measurements on weather conditions. As a novel and alternative method, we have developed a low-cost system combining the measurements of environmental parameters with tracking of the electrophysiological changes in the plant body. These include the measurement of photosynthetically active radiation, volumetric water content, ambient temperature, ambient relative humidity, and bioelectrical impedance of the plant. We demonstrate a potential application of this system for monitoring the diurnal behavior and drought response of plants.