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For the current study, the researchers injected the solution into corn leaves, and chose it, in part, because the crop is essential for food supply around the world. Nanosensors covered the outside of the leaf cells, causing water to swell or shrink.
AquaDust dye molecules fluoresce at different wavelengths, depending on their proximity to each other, and these wavelengths can be measured with a tool called a spectrometer. When water is available, the nanoparticles are inflated, moving away from the dyes and creating a peak at the green wavelength emitted by the dyes. When there is not a lot of water, the nanoparticles shrink, and the dyes come together to achieve a yellow wavelength peak. Researchers can then convert emissions spectrum readings into measurements of water potential, all without harming the plant.
The technique can be applied to different leaf locations to track water flow, says Piyush Jain, author of Cornell research and PhD in mechanical engineering. “What allows us to do this is basically modeling the flow of water from different tissues, starting from different sections of the leaf from the stem,” he says.
The researchers placed the AquaDust measurements below the leaf surface, where the plants perform important functions such as CO.2, releasing water vapor into the atmosphere and bottling sugars produced by photosynthesis. Researchers say it will be very helpful to grow crops that better manage water, better understand water biology and behavior at critical points.
Eventually, the technology could be used in real-world situations, such as for field or greenhouse workers. You may at some point spray AquaDust on a field and then use a multispectral camera to quickly measure the water potential in hundreds of plants.
Despite the distant development, AquaDust seems to be a useful technology, says Irwin Goldman, a professor of horticulture at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who did not participate in the research. “Using remote sensing technology — in this case nanosensors is being used — is a huge leap forward,” he says. “The meaning of this technology is that it’s the future, really.”
Goldman says growers have been developing drought-resistant crops for some time. “For at least the last 15 years, if there is a plant growing community in our crop we need to include selection for greater resistance in our crops within our growing programs, which is not enough to achieve higher yield or better quality or disease resistance,” he says. But, he noted, it will take a long process to identify which plants cope with water loss and which genes are associated with that elasticity, before then linking it to other desirable traits such as good nutrition and taste. “Once the genes are identified, it’s very helpful, but it doesn’t necessarily get to the end of the project,” he says. “We still need to find useful combinations.”
For now, AquaDust is primarily a research tool, not something that is ready to expand on the scale that farmers or growers can use to evaluate 1,000 plants per hour. On the one hand, the injected solution itself contains water, which must be evaporated before anyone can take the measurement. “We waited about a day for the leaf to return to its natural state,” Jain says.
AquaDust’s application and reading methods should be refined before they are ready for high-performance measurements or commercial products. In the meantime, accurately targeting the water flow to plants can help researchers solve some mysteries. One of them, Stroock says, is whether the plants let the innermost layers of leaves called mesophyll ever dry out. Over the years, it was that they avoided conventional wisdom, rather than indirect measurements other laboratories now that it is a proposed option. Being able to test it directly with AquaDust could change our understanding of how plants manage water and how they manage the stress created by internal dry tissues, he says.
“We think there are some very exciting questions to answer in the lab that are prioritized over commercialization,” says Stroock. “Right now, Iowa farmers aren’t calling us saying, ‘Can we cover our area with AquaDust?'”
These farmers are probably expecting rain. But at some point, technologies like nanosensors can help when those expectations are exhausted.
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