Who you work with#
Atria Foundation, described in Brief 12. This problem sits across two of its pillars — Bio-Diversity and the farm work behind Brief 22 — and would be tested on the Foundation’s own crops.
The situation#
By the time a farmer can see that a plant is stressed — wilting, yellowing, stunted growth — the damage has usually been happening for days. Water stress, disease, nutrient deficiency and heat all announce themselves late. Anything that gives warning earlier is worth money and worth water.
What is going wrong#
Existing early-warning tools measure the environment rather than the plant. Soil moisture sensors tell you about the soil. Weather stations tell you about the air. Neither tells you what the plant is actually experiencing, and two plants in the same soil can be in very different states.
Skills and Expertise#
- Branch — Electronics primarily, with CS for the analysis. Genuine instrumentation and signal processing content.
- Technical skills — Biopotential measurement, electrode design, low-noise amplification, signal processing, time-series classification, experimental design and statistics.
- Other skills — Designing an experiment that can disprove your own hypothesis, reading scientific literature critically, separating a real effect from a compelling demonstration.