banner
News center
Enduring experience and innovative technology

Sensors in agriculture: towards an Internet of Plants

Oct 24, 2023

Nature Reviews Methods Primers volume 3, Article number: 60 (2023) Cite this article

38 Accesses

2 Altmetric

Metrics details

To ensure a sustainable future and combat food scarcity, we must boost agricultural productivity, improve climate resilience and optimize resource usage. There is untapped potential for dense wireless sensor networks in agriculture that can increase yields and support resilient production when linked to smart decision and control systems.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

$29.99 / 30 days

cancel any time

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 1 digital issues and online access to articles

$99.00 per year

only $99.00 per issue

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Zhao, C. et al. Temperature increase reduces global yields of major crops in four independent estimates. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 9326–9331 (2017).

Article ADS Google Scholar

Zude-Sasse, M. et al. in Sensing Approaches for Precision Agriculture (eds Kerry, R. & Escolà, A.) 221–251 (Springer Cham, 2021).

Tran, D. et al. Electrophysiological assessment of plant status outside a Faraday cage using supervised machine learning. Sci. Rep. 9, 17073 (2019).

Article ADS Google Scholar

Dutta, S. et al. Ultrasound pulse emission spectroscopy method to characterize xylem conduits in plant stems. Research 2022, 9790438 (2022).

Article ADS Google Scholar

Wetser, K., Sudirjo, E., Buisman, C. J. N. & Strik, D. P. B. T. B. Electricity generation by a plant microbial fuel cell with an integrated oxygen reducing biocathode. Appl. Energy 137, 151–157 (2015).

Article Google Scholar

Geubbels, L. A. M., Federico, G., Vidojkovic, V., Anguera, J. & Bronckers, L. A. Plantenna: using plant leaves to increase antenna performance. in 2022 16th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP) (IEEE, 2022).

van Delden, S. H. et al. Current status and future challenges in implementing and upscaling vertical farming systems. Nat. Food 2, 944–956 (2021).

Article Google Scholar

Hemming, S., de Zwart, F., Elings, A., Petropoulou, A. & Righini, I. Cherry tomato production in intelligent greenhouses—sensors and AI for control of climate, irrigation, crop yield, and quality. Sensors 20, 6430 (2020).

Article ADS Google Scholar

Download references

This work has been carried out under the “Plantenna” research programme, a collaboration among the members (technical universities) of the 4TU Federation in the Netherlands. The authors thank all participants in this programme for discussions.

Department of Precision and Microsystems Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

Peter G. Steeneken & Gerard J. Verbiest

Horticulture and Product Physiology, Plant Sciences, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, Netherlands

Elias Kaiser

Department of Water Management, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

Marie-Claire ten Veldhuis

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

P.G.S. wrote the article. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript before submission.

Correspondence to Peter G. Steeneken.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Reprints and Permissions

Steeneken, P.G., Kaiser, E., Verbiest, G.J. et al. Sensors in agriculture: towards an Internet of Plants. Nat Rev Methods Primers 3, 60 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43586-023-00250-x

Download citation

Published: 03 August 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43586-023-00250-x

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative