York University professors create device that could revolutionize assessing plant health
Posted November 24, 2022 6:32 pm.
Last Updated November 25, 2022 12:11 am.
Two York University professors who created a mobile, highly sensitive biosensor device that monitors plant health say it has the potential to revolutionize how crops are assessed and help in the fight against climate change.
“We’re hoping that it is,” William Pietro, a professor in York University’s faculty of science, said when asked if the device could be game-changing.
“I think for Canada this is really important,” Ozzy Mermut, a physics professor and biophysicist also at York University, added.
The technology is a solid-state silicon photo-multiplier (SiPM)-enabled, portable-delayed fluorescence photon-counting device. In layperson’s terms, it measures light particles and can measure photosynthesis in plants.
Photon-counting devices that measure individual particles of light have been in existence since the 1960s. However, Pietro and Mermut took a commercially available silicon photo-multiplier and adapted it to count photons. The biggest advantage is mobility.
“We were able to make it very small, very compact. Instead of running off of 10,000 volts, we’re able to run off 27 volts. The photo-multiplier tubes that used to be used were very delicate, very expensive. This device can be put in a briefcase and run off of batteries,” Pietro said.
It took them four years to build the prototype and it started being used in June.
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During a demonstration to help illustrate the device and its potential for CityNews on Wednesday, students in a biophysics class went to a greenhouse to gather various plant clippings to bring into a lab inside the Petrie science building on the York University Keele campus.
They taped a leaf from a coffee tree onto the device and shined light on it multiple times, allowing the computer program to show the emissions coming off of it. The fainter the emissions detected, the less healthy it is.
Once the baseline was gathered, they put the leaf in a freezer for around 15 minutes and tested it again.
“From this trace, it almost looks like we injured the plant from the chill stress,” Mermut said as she and her students looked at the computer.
“We’re seeing very little emission from this plant.”
They left the leaf to sit at room temperature for another 15 minutes.
“There’s nothing here. What do you think?” Mermut asked aloud.
“Yeah, it’s continuing to die… It doesn’t recover.”
The analysis showed the plant was dead, but when examining the plant it looks the same as it was before it was cold-shocked — vital to know if you’re growing or maintaining plants.
So how can this technology be adapted in the world outside the classroom?
“Based on the baseline of this measurement and monitoring that over time, we can start to see how plants are reacting to those environmental stressors and hopefully, maybe in the future, we can look at things like climate change and greenhouse emissions and gases and how those things are affecting the health of plants, crops,” Mermut said.
Stressors could include flooding or a lack of water, hot or cold, or a lack of nutrients. For example, an analysis by the device could provide answers that would facilitate better growing conditions.
Mermut said they looked at a few different vegetables and tested how those perform if the temperature changes.
“One of the first surprises that we got was that spinach is very resilient to chill stress,” she said.
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Pietro described how planning is underway to retrofit a drone with the device so it can sweep over large plots of land.
“It could be flown over the Brazilian rainforest to inspect, for example, the effect of industrialization on plant life and planet earth, how does climate change affect that,” he said, noting approximately 20 per cent of the world’s oxygen comes from the Amazon rainforest.
They said they hope to eventually get the device into the hands of various scientists and farmers.
Karina Kofman, a second-year biology undergraduate student at York University, said she’s exploring biology and is thinking about a career in clinical medicine. She said it’s important for her to understand the connection of humans to plants as part of her studies.
“Plants in general as a whole are very applicable to human health. I mean we eat fruits and vegetables all the time,” Kofman said.
“As humans, we directly depend on these plants.”
She said the biophysics class and similar classes have made her think about the potential applications in other health-related areas.
“It feels like a dream to be involved in this scientific process as it unfolds in front of us. It’s a really unique opportunity to be exposed to technology that is so novel and so fresh,” Kofman said.
Pietro and Mermut added a study at another university is looking at using similar technology they’re using that has been developed to detect cancerous cells on skin before it shows up on clinical tests.
