Tools and Technologies Used to Detect Plant Health
Plant leaves absorb or capture several colors of visible light to drive the food-making process, photosynthesis. We can tell if a plant is healthy or stressed by monitoring the proportions of these colors reflected by the leaves, which is a good indicator of what is being absorbed. Several additional wavelengths of light, such as the near infrared, are also useful in monitoring plants because of the difference in reflectance between healthy and stressed plant leaves.
The technologies that measure the intensity of reflected light help us monitor environmental health in a number of ways:
- Determine plant health,
- Identify the types of land cover (plants, roads, bare soil, lakes, ocean, snow, ice, etc.),
- Measure the amount of land cover types ,
- Monitor the growth and timing of plant cycles (greening up, flowering, greening down, senescence).
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View an animation of three common light sensors use sunlight.
Illustration by Ling Hsiao, Museum of Science, Boston.
Combining these techniques provides a thorough assessment of environmental conditions. The following technologies may be used to learn how to use satellite data as well as collect accurate data in these four categories in your environment.
Plant Stress Detection Filters are an inexpensive technology that lets you quickly see if a plant is healthy or stressed.
Infrared Goggles block visible light so you can see a small portion of near infrared light with your eyes.
Hand-held Light Sensors provide low cost ways to measure the intensity of light emitted from, reflected by, absorbed by, or transmitted through an object. Under Development
Digital Cameras are a powerful technology that may be used in a variety of ways to study your world:
For many decades satellites have been carrying Earth monitoring sensors that have provided global imagery and data which have changed our understanding of how the Earth functions.
Next: Investigations
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