An automatic and portable Wiltmeter leaf turgor measurement device

作者：Aroca Rafael Vidal^*; Calbo Adonai Gimenez

来源：Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 2016, 121: 222-233.

DOI：10.1016/j.compag.2015.12.013

• Leaf water status
• Irrigation scheduling
• Post-harvest quality
• Plant water relations
• Turgor pressure
• Non-invasive measurement

The Wiltmeter is a non-invasive device that provides estimates of leaf cell turgor pressure in the field. It can be used for the quantification of the hydration of leafy vegetables and as supplementary method to gauge the irrigation scheduling efficiency. It also enables direct inferences about the occurrence of water stress on plants. The traditional non-automated Wiltmeter, however, requires careful and tiring procedures and it is also subjected to interference of the operator handling. In that way, the automatic and portable Wiltmeter herein described presents some improvements to make the instrument more robust, easier and practical. Fully automatic and portable versions of the Wiltmeter, prepared with a load cell and a FSR force sensor are described and compared to a reference non-automated instrument. The proposed automatic Wiltmeter has shown a correlation R-2 greater than 0.9 and curve slope close to one in both prototypes when compared to a reference non-automated Wiltmeter, showing that the new automatic Wiltmeter is a practical and reliable device for non-destructive leaf turgor studies and analysis, which even can be set to perform stand alone periodic measurements.

• 出版日期2016-2