
Engineers develop precision injection system for plants - gigama
https://news.mit.edu/2020/plant-precision-injection-orange-olive-banana-0427
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gigama
tl;dr...

"...there are several ongoing epidemics that affect crops and put global food
production at risk. Oranges, olives, and bananas are already under threat in
many areas due to diseases that affect plants' circulatory systems and that
cannot be treated by applying pesticides."

"The method uses an array of microneedles made of a silk-based biomaterial to
deliver nutrients, drugs, or other molecules to specific parts of the plant."

"The microneedles, which the researchers call phytoinjectors, can be made in a
variety of sizes and shapes, and can deliver material specifically to a
plant's roots, stems, or leaves, or into its xylem (the vascular tissue
involved in water transportation from roots to canopy) or phloem (the vascular
tissue that circulates metabolites throughout the plant). In lab tests, the
team used tomato and tobacco plants, but the system could be adapted to almost
any crop, they say. The microneedles can not only deliver targeted payloads of
molecules into the plant, but they can also be used to take samples from the
plants for lab analysis."

