Botanical Fitness

DR. SHAWANA TABASSUM TAKES SENSOR SCIENCE IN A NEW DIRECTION

BY LORI FERGUSON

TODAY IT’S common to see someone sporting a wearable sensor like a Fitbit or Apple Watch. But a plant equipped with a fitness device? That’s something altogether different ... at least for now. If Dr. Shawana Tabassum has her way, plants will soon be equipped with their own wearable integrated fitness tracker, an invention she has dubbed the Crop-FIT.

An assistant professor of electrical engineering at UT Tyler, Tabassum conducts research into flexible and soft sensors, micro/nano - optics, microfluidic devices and micro - and nano - electromechanical systems. The Crop -FIT, she says, represents a merger between her doctoral and post-doctoral studies at Iowa State University.

As a doctoral student, Tabassum concentrated on devising optical sensors for agricultural uses such as gas monitoring in the field. As a post-doc, she turned her attention to developing point- of- care sensors for health care applications. “At the end of my post-doctoral training, I realized that I could create wearable sensors for agriculture,” she recalls. “It occurred to me that plants have organs that can be monitored as well — the leaf, the root, the stem — and I suddenly realized I had an opportunity to enter an unexplored area of research.”

Farmers currently lack the ability to gather hard, real-time data which would indicate if plants were stressed — be it from lack of water, nutrients, or pests — she continues. “I realized that if we could make a wearable sensor for plants, we could accomplish a great deal.”

The idea has energized Tabassum’s research since she joined the faculty at UT Tyler in 2020 and the concept is garnering national attention; her research is currently supported by a $200,000 National Science Foundation grant. Tabassum developed the Crop-FIT prototype, which she hopes to implement soon. “I’ve been doing initial experiments with the sensor in a garden behind the engineering building,” Tabassum explains. “The next step will be to test the sensors in a greenhouse or growth chamber, and then hopefully sometime next year my Texas A&M colleague and I will deploy sensors in a soybean or sorghum field.”

The field will be divided into different segments, with one sensor deployed per segment, Tabassum explains. Initial experiments will require hand placement of the device, but ultimately the sensors will be deployed via robots or drones. The price per unit will be modest. “We anticipate that the entire device will cost less than $50 and will enable users to monitor temperature, humidity, soil salinity and the like. With this information in hand, farmers can respond to stressors that may be threatening their crops in real time, allowing them to contain costs for such things as fertilizer, water and pesticides more effectively while also maximizing their crop’s yield.”

Tabassum hopes that this research will spark interest among other scientists, particularly young women in STEM. “There are not many women in electrical engineering, a situation I’m always working to change,” she observes. In addition to hiring female undergraduate and graduate students to work in her laboratory,

Here Are The Facts

The need for plant fitness trackers

Tabassum notes, she seeks to encourage women through her professional alliances.

For example, she recently chaired two women in tech sessions at the 2022 flagship conference of the IEEE Sensors Council, held in Dallas. One panel, a “Women in Sensors Program,” brought together female scientists in academia from the U.S., Asia and Europe to discuss current and future job opportunities in the field. Another, the “WiSe -YP Big Idea Pitch Competition,” sought to encourage young students and researchers to bring an entrepreneurial mindset to their work in sensor research and development.

“Ours remains a male-dominated profession and women are often discouraged from starting their own ventures,” notes Tabassum. “I’d love to see more women working in the tech-related side of our field, and I’m committed to doing whatever I can to encourage that shift.”

GLOBALLY

Roughly 14.1% of crop loss is attributed to plant disease

220

BILLION USD

Cost of annual crop loss worldwide

DROUGHT STRESS

Yields up to 21% and 40% of global reductions in wheat and maize productions, respectively

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