A team of multidisciplinary researchers at Northeastern University’s Kostas Research Institute have developed revolutionary color-changing sensors. When used correctly, these sensors will help you maintain the health of your houseplants and crops. This research effort is being directed by our principal research scientist Dan Wilson. It gives small and limited-resource farms tools that enable them to react more effectively to plant stress. Cassandra Martin, Lillian Springer, Dorthea Geroulakos, Audrey Moos, Cicero, and Wilson contributed substantially to the research. It was the first article ever published in the journal ACS Agricultural Science & Technology.
An approach like the sensors is a big leap forward from current mechanisms that mainly serve big ag. Drones equipped with special cameras can sometimes track the health of industrial plant monocultures from above. Yet the new sensors offer a more accessible alternative for home gardeners and smaller agricultural businesses.
Understanding the Technology
The innovative technology behind these sensors relies on the nectar of the nesocodon plant, which changes color in response to varying concentrations of proline—a universal biomarker for plant health. When proline levels are high as a result of plant stress, the nectar is a vivid crimson color. Dan Wilson noted that “most existing mechanisms for assessing plant health are designed for large-scale operations with hundreds of plants,” highlighting the need for more user-friendly solutions.
Josie Cicero, another collaborator on the project, explained the significance of the color change: “If there is a lot of stress and proline is there in a high concentration, it’s bright red.” This direct visual feedback lets users evaluate the health of their plants faster and more effectively.
The sensors are able to identify problems after a quick 15 minutes of testing. This immediate, actionable feedback provides invaluable, tactical foresight that can greatly enhance plant stewardship. The research team tested their sensors on various crops, including cabbage, kale, brussel sprouts, and broccoli, confirming their versatility across different plant types.
A Focus on Accessibility
One of the key purposes of this fieldwork is to bring high-tech ag tools down to earth for non-experts who will use them on their farms. Dan Wilson emphasized their commitment to simplifying the technology for broader distribution: “We’re really focused on trying to make all the technology as simple, self-contained and compact as possible so that it’s less expensive to make and more distributable.”
Cicero echoed this sentiment, stating, “[They] take a long time to process, and aren’t accessible for a lot of people.” The team’s efforts center on creating a product that is easy to understand and operate, ensuring that “ideally, you don’t have to be a scientist to know how this works.”
Thinking of usability from the outset, the researchers are looking to adopt design principles that will make the final product’s usability easy to use. Cicero elaborated on the sensor’s functionality: “It’s a qualitative response. You can look at it and see it’s yellow, it’s orange. … We can scan it and get a quantitative number associated with it.” This bi-modal ability supports both qualitative observational analysis and highly quantitative data collection.
Future Implications
The potential of these color-changing sensors goes far beyond backyard gardens and community farms. They take away the guesswork, giving gardeners instant diagnostics on plant health. This empowers users to answer proactively to deteriorating conditions such as drought or nutrient deficiency. This would result in increased crop quality and yield, and more robust crops.
With improved technology, the research team hopes their work can go even further. They hope to further develop the sensor’s capabilities to offer a wider range of data on plant health. Wilson stated, “We try to incorporate design principles that will make the final product really easy to use.”