Tag: plants

Is that plant healthy?

Operations on 14 January, 2020

We can’t easily monitor the health of plants, by the time we see that they’re sick it’s usually too late to save that. That’s an issue for your house plants, a field of wheat, orchards and plantations.

Karina Khambatta has developed a way to use the waxy surface of leaves to monitor their health.

Currently the technique uses infrared spectroscopy to study changes seen throughout leaf senescence. Karina has had the opportunity to utilise the infrared microscopy lab located at the Australian Synchrotron to help correlate her infrared studies undertaken at Curtin University, but Karina believes it can be turned into a handheld device that could be used on-farm, like reading a barcode.

Botany and religion agree on Latin

Operations on 3 August, 2011

What is acacia?
No plants…no humanity – call for action
And other stories from the XVIII International Botanical Congress

Over 2,000 plant scientists from 73 nations adopted a series of motions at the conclusion of the XVIII International Botanical Congress in Melbourne on Saturday, 30 July.

Could your lawn, golf course or pasture make its own weedkiller?

rohan on 6 July, 2010

IUPAC Symposium 4A – Natural Products, Tuesday 1:45PM – 3:00PM

Leslie Weston, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga

Leslie Weston has discovered and patented two weedkillers made by plants. Now she’s investigating Patterson’s curse to see what tricks it uses to invade grasslands and repel herbivores. Her vision is to use plants or plant extracts to control plants, as an alternative to synthetic pesticides and herbicides.