Intelligent, net or wireless enabled fluorosensors for high throughput monitoring of assorted crops

Abstract

Phenotypic characterization of assorted crops of different genotypes requires large data sets of diverse types for statistical reliability. Temporal monitoring of plant fluorescence is able to capture the dynamics of the photosynthesis process that is summarized in a number of parameters for which the genotypic heritability can be calculated. In this paper, an intelligent sensor system is presented that is capable of high-throughput production of baseline-corrected temporal fluorescence curves with many feature points. These are obtained by integrating several (direct and modulated) measurement methods applied at different wavelengths. Simultaneously, temporal change of the sample's emission and the ambient reference temperatures are recorded. Multiple sensors can be deployed easily in large span greenhouse environments with centralized data collection over wired or wireless infrastructure. The unique features of the sensors are a compact, embedded signal guiding fibre optic system, instrument-standard variable tubular detector and source modules, net or wireless enabling for remote control and fast, quasi real-time data collection. Along with the instrumentation, some representative phenotyping data are also presented that were taken on a subset of pepper recombinant inbred line population. It is also demonstrated that transient fluorescence feature points yield high heritability, offering a high confidence level for distinguishing the pepper genotypes.