Title: Decrypting plant-talk

Abstract

Today Food Security is a global concern. Increased population leading to exponential increase in the demand for food has forced to create methods to minimize food wastage. Agriculture globally suffers 40 % loss due to crop diseases amounting to more than $ 70 billion due to pest infestation (Biotic Plant Stress). United Nations Population Division expects that by 2050, population of world would reach 9.8 billion, 30% more people than today. Reduced use of pesticide due to adverse effect on the health of the consumers has led to increased crop loss in organic farming. Therefore, there is a need in the agri-market to create solutions that can decipher the cross-talk between the plants to understand their well-being, even before plants and crop show visual symptoms of disease. Solutions available today are disease specific and require different techniques for different diseases. We have developed a technique which decrypts the plant communication to understand their health on a real-time basis. Platform uses cost effective, disposable and plug & play type sensors for forecasting stress in plants. Sensors are not disease specific and can be used on any crop type.