If Plants could speak, what would they say?
If Plants could speak, would you listen?
We envision LINK to be used in:
Homes - Understanding and taking better care of your plants.
Greenhouses and Farmlands - Ensuring healthy plant growth and disease control.
Forests - Listening to incoming danger, ensuring ecosystem wellbeing and nurturing
Human <> Nature connections.
We are working on scaling down LINK’s system to build a LINK Nano-sensor that can be used to detect and communicate distress in plants.
The Future
A - Unstressed
B - Stressed
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To validate that these signals are really distress signals, we looked at the auto-fluorescent property of plants; when wounded, the chlorophyll emits fluorescence. This fluorescence measurement is used to validate the distress signals.
Validation
Potential Difference (mV)
Touch
Fire
Ice
Time (s)
Dictionary
Plants used -
Carnivorous Plants: Venus Fly Trap, Sundew
Flowering Plants: Oxalis, Mimosa Pudica
Herbs: Mint, Basil
1. Stimuli Selection
We used 3 stimuli in this experiment - Touch, Fire, Ice.
2. Stimuli Initiation
Introducing the stimuli to the plant for 10s.
3. Response
Each stimuli left behind a unique signal. These were analyzed for translation.
4. Stabilization
After each trial, we gave 20s for the plant to rest.
The experiment was done on 6 different plants.
Variables tested - Plant response time, Distress threshold, and Internal stimuli interference.
Total trial count = 1040
Trials and Experiments
What LINK Does
Plant Distress is any unfavorable condition that negatively impacts a plant's metabolism, growth, or development; triggered by either biotic (living) or abiotic (non-living) factors.
Distress leads to Ionic Changes causing a Potential Difference in the plant.
LINK intervenes at the ionic level to pick up this potential difference, map, and then translate the signals.
If Plants could speak, what would they say?
Would they tell us stories, respond to our interactions, or would they cry out?
Detecting and Communicating Distress in Plants
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