Cavity Resonators

Volumetric and non-invasive measurements of plant biomass are an important target to assist plant growth analysis and to derive information and proxies about plant water status.

At IBG-2 we have developed prototypes that use the cavity resonance physics principle applied to this problem. In the last few years we have explored a range of electromagnetic frequencies and cavity geometries for measuring whole shoot water content, ranging from benchtop and laboratory instruments to a large cavity in use for large plants and that are also included as a possible measurement mode in the phenotyping platform SCREEN House.

Important parameters:

Selected Publications

Menzel, M. I., Tittmann, S., Bühler, J., Preis, S., Wolters, N., Jahnke, S., et al., (2009) Non-Invasive Determination of Plant Biomass with Microwave Resonators. Plant, cell & environment 32, 368 - 379  [10.1111/j.1365-3040.2009.01931.x]

Sydoruk, V., Fiorani, F., Jahnke, S., Krause, H.-J. (2016) Design and Characterization of Microwave Cavity Resonators for Noninvasive Monitoring of Plant Water Distribution. IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques 64(99), 1 - 11  [10.1109/TMTT.2016.2594218]