Sensors for Precision Agriculture and Crop Management Decisions

Wearable plant sensors are expected to revolutionize agricultural data collection, according to the World Economic Forum, Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2023. Wearable plant monitors, and the resulting analytical decision tools, promise to improve plant health and increase agricultural productivity. To develop wearable plant monitors that provide actionable data on plant health for optimized growth and production of agricultural crops, sensors capable of the non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of critical plant signaling molecules are needed. The sensors developed in this effort will acquire relevant data that are easy to interpret. The sensors will be inexpensive, light weight, low power, long lasting, and capable of easily providing data to a centralized data storage and analysis tools. TDA Research’s sensors will provide plant health data which will be critical to the implementation of precision agriculture, were each plant is optimized for agricultural production. On-plant studies during this research effort will help establish the form factor of the wearable monitor and establish sensor data correlation for optimum and stress growth conditions. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, from 2014 to 2021, the U.S. has lost 13.6 million acres of farmland. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that world food production will need to increase by 70% by 2050. NDE plant sensors that can be incorporated into a wearable plant monitor to enable precision agriculture to optimize production of food crops through individual plant management decisions will be necessary. As increases in agricultural productivity are required in higher density grow locations, both farmers on earth and space exploration will require wearable plant monitors to optimize agricultural productivity.