Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Logo
Menu
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Organizational Charts
    • Virtual Tours
    • EESA Strategic Vision
  • Our People
    • A-Z People
    • Alumni Network
    • Area Offices
    • Committees
    • Directors
    • IDEA Working Group
    • Paul A. Witherspoon
    • Postdocs & Early Careers
    • Search by Expertise
  • Careers & Opportunities
    • Careers
    • Intern Pilot w/CSUEB
    • Mentorship Program
    • Recognition & Funding Opps
    • EESA Mini Grants
    • S&E Metrics for Performance and Promotion
    • Student Opportunities
    • Supervisor EnRichment (SupER) Program
    • Promotion Metrics (Scientific)
  • Research
    • Area-Wide Program Domain
      • Earth AI & Data
    • Our Divisions
    • Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division
      • Environmental & Biological Systems Science
        • Programs
        • Environmental Remediation & Water Resources
        • Ecosystems Biology Program
        • Bioenergy
      • Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
        • Atmospheric System Research
        • Terrestrial Ecosystem Science
      • Climate & Atmosphere Processes
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
        • Atmospheric System Research
      • Earth Systems & Society
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
    • Energy Geosciences Division
      • Discovery Geosciences
        • Programs
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geophysics
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geochemistry
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Isotope
      • Energy Resources and Carbon Management
        • Programs
        • Carbon Removal & Mineralization Program
        • Carbon Storage Program
        • Geothermal Systems
        • Hydrocarbon Resource Sustainability
        • Nuclear Energy & Waste
      • Resilient Energy, Water & Infrastructure
        • Programs
        • Water-Energy
        • Critical Infrastructure
        • Environmental Resilience
        • Grid-Scale Subsurface Energy Storage
        • National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI)
    • Projects
    • Research at a Glance
    • Publication Lists
    • Centers and Resources
    • Technologies & National User Programs
  • Departments
    • Climate Sciences
    • Ecology
    • Geochemistry
    • Geophysics
    • Hydrogeology
    • Operations
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Events
    • Earth & Environment Newsletter
  • Intranet
  • Safety
    • EESA Safety
  • FoW
  • Search

  • all
  • people
  • events
  • posts
  • pages
  • projects
  • publications

Ecosense Technology Wins Bayer Competition3 min read

by Christina Procopiou on October 27, 2021

Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division

EESA scientists have been recognized for a sensing technology developed to assess crop roots by “seeing” into the soil while keeping a plant’s roots intact. TERI, Tomographic Electrical Rhizosphere Imager (TERI), placed first in a Bayer Crop Science Grants4Tech competition that evaluated how well portable sensing devices can collect data on root mass, root depth, and root-system diameter of corn and soybean plants in the field without disturbing the plant.

When a plant is beleaguered by drought, contaminated soils, or any other stressor, the earliest and best indicators are often not obvious in its leaves, or stems, flowers or fruit. For crops or houseplants, shrubs or grasses, the early-warning signs of stress are out of sight, out of mind in the last place anyone ever looks: underground in the plant’s hidden half, or its roots. Still, there’s not yet a way to inspect these roots without digging a plant up and tearing its hidden half to pieces, destroying the plant.

Now Berkeley Lab scientists have been recognized for a new sensing technology developed to assess crops by “seeing” into the soil while keeping a plant’s roots intact. TERI, Tomographic Electrical Rhizosphere Imager (TERI), placed first in a Grants4Tech competition that evaluated how novel sensing devices can collect key root trait data, such as mass, length, depth, and diameter of important agriculture crops, e.g. corn and soybean, in the field without disturbing the plant. 

TERI, a project supported by the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E Rhizosphere Observations Optimizing Terrestrial Sequestration (ROOTS) program, was evaluated from October 4-8 alongside two competitor technologies at a Bayer agricultural facility in St. Louis. As the competition’s top winner, TERI’s development team received a €40,000 award with interests from Bayer Crop Science Division towards further developing the TERI system.

Berkeley Lab’s Geophysics Department Head Yuxin Wu, who is the PI of the ROOTS project and led the team in developing TERI, said “Because plant roots are hidden away underground beneath the soil, they are very difficult to quantify, and we often miss out on the early-warning signals that tell us a plant is not adapting well to environmental stressors, such as excessive drought, or maybe to the opposite: too much moisture. 

“Imagine if we could measure these root traits without destroying a plant. That could help us to rethink plant cultivation from an entirely new angle, using an approach based on new knowledge of plant’s roots rather than merely above-ground traits such as its leaves or cross-pollination characteristics.”   

Solutions like TERI, which before the final event of the Bayer competition had been field tested only on wheat crops in Oklahoma, are attractive to agricultural companies such as Bayer because they offer the chance to track root growth and health over time to understand how they adapt to changing environmental stresses which can influence crop yield and resilience to changing climate.  TERI is a product of the EcoSENSE suite of novel-sensing technologies and capabilities developed at Berkeley Lab to explore plant-soil-microbe interactions across scales.

“If we can measure root traits without destroying them, it opens up a world of possibilities for better crop management and cultivation of new plant cultivars that are better adapted to certain conditions associated with a changing climate. For example, a crop with tailored roots  that is able to tolerate many months of severe drought and then the occasional deluge of heavy rain. That’s a sustainable agricultural future worth working towards.”

 

News & Events

EESA Research Scientist Selected for NAE 2022 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium2 min read

May 23, 2022

Mengsu Hu, an EESA research scientist, was selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium in September. For more than 25 years, the NAE has identified the best and brightest early-career engineers from large and small companies, research universities, and government laboratories to discuss their leading-edge research and…

Microbial Response to a Changing and Fire-Prone Arctic Ecosystem2 min read

April 27, 2022

Burning more than 1,000 square kilometers of tundra on Alaska’s North Slope, the 2007 Anaktuvuk river wildfire is one of the largest fires to occur within Arctic ecosystems. Berkeley Lab scientist Nick Bouskill led a study that used data from this disturbance event to predict ecosystem recovery as fires advance in a changing climate. (Credit:…

Study Evaluates Phosphorus Availability Underground using Plant Leaves as Biosensors3 min read

April 25, 2022

When envisioning renewable energy, sources that often come to mind are the sun, wind, batteries, and water. However, biofuel, a type of renewable energy that converts organic material from plants into liquid fuel, is an important part of a global effort to achieve net-zero emissions. Switchgrass, a deep-rooted native North American grass that grows in…

EESA Multimedia Producer and Digital Strategist Niba Audrey Nirmal Awarded Ocean Science Journalism Fellowship1 min read

Niba Audrey Nirmal, EESA Multimedia Producer and Digital Strategist, has been awarded the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) Ocean Science Journalism (OSJ) Fellowship.   In May, Nirmal will join nine other selected fellows on a five-day, experiential-learning based retreat at the WHOI located in Falmouth, Massachusetts to learn about ocean-science concepts ranging from marine biology to…

  • Our People
    • Area Offices
    • Committees
    • Directors
    • Organizational Charts
    • Postdocs
    • Staff Only
    • Search by Expertise
  • Departments
    • Climate Sciences
    • Ecology
    • Geochemistry
    • Geophysics
    • Hydrogeology
  • Research
    • Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division
    • Energy Geosciences Division
    • Program Domains
      • Programs
    • Projects
  • Contact
    • 510 486 6455
    • eesawebmaster@lbl.gov
    • Our Identity

Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo DOE Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo UC

A U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory Managed by the University of California

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory · Earth and Environmental Sciences Area · Privacy & Security Notice