Code
3E003406
Duration
01 October 2007 → 30 September 2009
Funding
Regional and community funding: Special Research Fund, Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Promotor
Fellow
Research disciplines
-
Natural sciences
- General biology
- Plant biology
-
Medical and health sciences
- Biophysics
- Biophysics
- Biophysics
-
Engineering and technology
- Control systems, robotics and automation
- Design theories and methods
- Mechatronics and robotics
- Computer theory
Keywords
respiration
Linear Variable Displacement Transducer
carbon metabolism
radial growth
irrigation
ecophysiology
modelling
plant-water relations
sap flow
photosynthesis
LVDT-sensors
Project description
Biosensors (i.e. online plant sensors) can be succesfully used as diagnostic tools to evaluate the physiological plant health status and are, therefore, of practical importance for the development of advanced phytomonitoring systems. A promising sensor is the LVDT, which can be used to measure online and with great precision stem diamter variations, including radial stem growth. The LVDT measurement reveals useful information on both the plant-water relations and the carbon metabolism. The aim of this research is to develop a mechanistic model which allows to unambiguously interpret the LVDT-signal and, hence, the underlying physiological plant processes.