🖖 Barely there sensors

So I was reading about plant growth. You know, as one does on a Saturday.

We’re studying how to grow plants in space. As we experiment, our ways of studying them sometimes need to grow too.

A team of University of Illinois researchers have been working for three years to create sensors that can monitor and transmit plant growth information without human intervention.

…and so what?

I know that’s what you’re thinking.

That’s ‘cause I didn’t tell you the cool part.

These aren’t your average sensors.

They’re stretchy.

The results

They created Stretchable-Polymer-Electronics-based Autonomous Remote Strain Sensors. 

Or SPEARS2.

These sensors are highly stretchable, resilient to humidity and temperature, and can stretch over 400% while remaining attached to the plant.

Supported by a NASA grant, their goal was to make sustainable veggie growth possible during long-term space missions.

The sensors are transparent and so light that they have a negligible effect on the stems and leaves- plants barely notice they’re wearing anything.

Data is sent wirelessly to a monitoring station so there are no cables or wires interfering with the plants.

You gotta take extra care to make sure your food is properly fed and is free from disease.

Probably the two most important goals for the team were

1. to reduce the amount of labour involved in analysing plants

2. to create a way to collect data without being destructive.

You usually have to cut pieces off, dehydrate them, mix them in a solution and probably run them in a centrifuge to get results.

Camera set-ups that monitor growth are bulky. So you can only test so many plants at the same time.

We needed away to study the plants without interfering.

What we’ll learn

How much do plant stems grow during one sol? (that’s a Martian day: 24 hrs, 40 min)

What’s too much growth?

What’s too little?

Are the plants getting the best nutrition possible?

Which conditions are causing problems that can be avoided in the next generation?

Sure we can grow anything that fits in the hydroponics pods once we’re out in space. But we need to know what effects these new conditions will have on our food supply.

Plants are going to evolve as their progeny grow up in non-Earth scenarios.

Earth plants have a cycle based on all the conditions that exist here. Things like daily sun exposure and the Earth’s seasons.

Those won’t be the conditions on Mars. Sure we’ll mimic those conditions. But it can never be exactly the same.

Different air composition.
Different biome (microorganisms).
Different lighting conditions.
Different water.
Different nutrients and minerals.

We’d be creating variations of plants different from their Earthling ancestors- new species essentially.

We gotta monitor and document those changes.

Because since we’re eating those plants, they’ll be changing us too.

P.S. Here’s the study if you’re curious.