Wearable Plant Sensors Based on Nanometer-Thick Ag Films on Polyethylene Glycol Terephthalate Substrates for Real-Time Monitoring of Plant Growth

The real-time monitoring of growth status, pest and disease prevention, and the extraction of physical and chemical signals of plant are essential for precision and postharvest agriculture. Although multifunctional wearable plant sensors have been used in leaf wetness and growth monitoring, their high fabrication costs and low performance are drawbacks. Herein, a bionic plant sensor with a nanometer-thick Ag film and double V-shaped grooves was fabricated and operated as a scorpion microscale slit receptor to monitor plant growth. The bionic plant sensor showed ultrasensitive vibration detection capability and was fabricated using a very simple and scalable strategy, requiring only 1 h/per and costing $1.3/per. Furthermore, the wireless sensor enabled continuous and real-time growth monitoring of bamboo, which showed a day/night growth tendency consistent with previous intrusive reports. In addition, the wearable plant sensor demonstrated great potential for real-time plant growth detection.