In vivo sensing to monitor tomato plants in field conditions and optimize crop water management

Irrigation is key to increasing crop yield and meeting the global demand for food. This study reports the assessment of tomato water consumption by bioristor, a new in vivo an Organic ElectroChemical Transistor-based biosensor. Bioristor enables direct, real-time acquisition of biophysical information about the plant’s water requirements directly from the plant sap, and thus the water input can be adjusted accordingly. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the efficacy of bioristor in rapidly detecting changes in the plant’s water status enhancing water use and irrigation efficiency in tomato cultivation with significant savings in the water supply. To this end, experiments were carried out in 2018 and 2020 in Parma (Italy) in tomato fields under different water regimes. The sensor response index (R) produced by bioristor recorded the real time plant health status, highlighting an excess in the water supplied as well as the occurrence of drought stress during the growing season. In both years, bioristor showed that the amount of water supplied could have been reduced by 36% or more. Bioristor also measured the timing and duration of leaf wetting: 438 h and 409 h in 2018 and 2020, respectively. These results open up new perspectives in irrigation efficiency and in more sustainable approaches to pesticide application procedures.