UniSQ is first university in Australia to deploy state-of-art plant scanner

In 20 minutes this hi-tech tool can collect the same amount of data that would otherwise take a team of researchers all day, freeing them up to analyse and test their theories.

Lauren Goldspink and Neil Robinson in the glasshouse showcasing the PlantEye 3DMultispectral Scanner.

Farmers will have access to more detailed research, faster, thanks to an innovative piece of technology installed in the University of Southern Queensland’s glasshouses.

The PlantEye F600 H-Portal scanner is suspended from a movable rig and is capable of taking precise measurements to track how plants respond to different nutrient loads or environmental conditions.

It is a Dutch invention that will cut down the researchers’ manual workloads at the UniSQ Institute for Life Sciences and the Environment by about 85 per cent, freeing them up to spend more time analysing data.

Research Logistics Manager Lauren Goldspink said UniSQ was the first institution in Australia to secure the kit.

“It’s a new tool that we’ve invested in that is going to transform the way that we do our research, particularly in plant phenotyping,” she said.

“As researchers we’re keen on understanding the traits of a plant, how tall it is, its digital biomass, and leaf area, and traditionally those methods would be done manually.

“The PlantEye is fully automated so it is very much a hands-off approach.

“We’re taking our research out of the field, we’re taking them out of the glasshouse and we’re letting the plant eyes do all of that hard work.”

The PlantEye is capable of running 24 hours a day and unlike the manual methods that required a human to measure plants with a ruler, there is no risk of damaging its leaves or stems.

It is also far more accurate.

“What we are going to see is accelerated research outcomes,” Ms Goldspink said.

“We can place the labour cost onto the infrastructure itself and that means that our projects aren’t costing as much, so we now need to scale our research in data analysis.”

The PlantEye comes at an important time for agricultural researchers who are looking at ways to help farmers respond to a changing climate.

It has been used overseas to crop breeding programs to assess varieties for traits like drought tolerance and yield potential, disease monitoring to detect early physiological changes in plants affected by fungal or bacterial infections, and studies on environmental stressors such as heatwaves and nutrient deficiencies

“We want to ensure that we focus on our regional communities and the answers that they need us to solve,” Mrs Goldspink said.

“We’re really well positioned to do that. The university and our researchers within the institute have really fantastic relationships with farmers in our region and with industry broadly.”

Originally published as UniSQ is first university in Australia to deploy state-of-art plant scanner