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Camera reveals plants’ inner processes

Posted by dominik.schneider | January 25, 2018

phenomics cameraResearchers take hundreds of plant pictures, exposing their biochemical activity

January 25, 2018

Scientists rapidly take pictures while flashing lights at plants, hoping to gain a better understanding of how they function.

WSU’s Phenomics Center, on the eastern edge of campus, operates an imaging camera system that can collect chlorophyll fluorescence data from plants when they are exposed to fluorescent light.

The camera, suspended close to the ceiling, navigates a metal grid above tables of plants.

Only 1 percent of the energy is emitted back into the camera. What the camera captures cannot be seen with the human eye, but it provides important diagnostic information for researchers. The plants appear different in pictures depending on their photosynthetic activity.

Helmut Kirchhoff, Phenomics Center coordinator and assistant professor for the Institute of Biological Chemistry, said the data can show genetic characteristics and how the plant creates energy.

He said the machine first operated in 2011, and that this is the easiest and least invasive way to monitor energy within plants. Kirchhoff estimated the machine could take between 200 and 300 pictures of plants simultaneously, which allows researchers to gather information efficiently.

“WSU tried to bring this phenomics approach further on campus,” Kirchhoff said. “There are different efforts going on now.”

Kirchhoff said the machine is computer-controlled and can program certain protocols, depending on what needs to be extracted from the data (Full Article).