Fluidics-Based Plant Study Platform with Colorimetric Humidity Monitoring

Abstract

Studying plant root responses to various environmental stimuli is challenging due to lack of proper and convenient methods for analysis. By adopting the concept of microfluidic systems, we develop a novel meso-scale fluidic platform to create controlled environment for studying physiological behaviors of small plant roots. Air flows with different humidity through a Y-shape fluidic channel generate a two-dimensional humidity gradient over the root zone of a small plant. The gradient was monitored with embedded humidity sensors. Actively growing plant roots are directly exposed to this humidity gradient and their growth kinetics are analyzed. This simple fluidic platform proved to be very effective and promising to investigate hydrotropic responses of plant roots (i.e. Root bending toward a more humid region). We anticipate that this platform can be applied to other areas of plant research including metabolic and genetic engineering.

Meeting Name

2015 IEEE Sensors (2015: Nov. 1-4, Busan, South Korea)

Department(s)

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Fluidic devices; Genetic engineering; Growth kinetics; Controlled environment; Environmental stimuli; Fluidic channels; Humid regions; Humidity gradients; Humidity monitoring; Micro fluidic system; Root bending; Fluidics

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

978-147998202-8

Document Type

Article - Conference proceedings

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2015 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Nov 2015

Link to Full Text

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