Microneedle-Based Technology for Agriculture and Safety
摘要
A novel idea called “plant health monitoring” is developed to clarify the physiological processes that occur at respective sites in the plants; climate change has influenced crop health and exacerbated plant stress, making it inconsistent with the need to boost food production to fill the world's population. For the agriculture sector, preventing plant loss and enhancing their health are crucial. The absence of plants negatively affects our natural systems. To prevent the loss, global efforts have been made to encourage the development of sophisticated sensing and treatment platforms. In smart and precision agriculture, soil sensors and plant wearables are essential to monitoring physical and chemical signals in the soil in real-time, such as temperature, and they provide vital information that helps farmers optimize crop growth conditions, combat biotic and abiotic stresses, and increase crop yields. Microneedles (MNs) are adaptable. This tiny device has drawn interest in several fields. These fields are interested in MNs because of their unique properties, which include low cost, ease of use, biosensing ability, and many others. These characteristics, together with the unique geometry of MNs, have made it possible to optimize MNs for each intended use. Therefore, in this chapter, microneedle technology is highlighted, along with its respective applications in agriculture. An overview of material and fabrication techniques for advanced sensor types in agriculture is also provided. This chapter showed the profound advantages of this emerging tool in agriculture in line with the bioeconomic plan in Industrial Revolution (IR) 5.0.