Researchers from the University of Adelaide are working on a device that can detect frost damage in crops. The team used their research to successfully screen barley plants for frost damage non-destructively using imaging technology and terahertz waves.

Frost damage happens when the reproductive organs of a plant are exposed to air temperature below 0° C. The team said that frost damage costs Australian farmers $360 million in direct and indirect losses every year. When frost damage is detected, farmers have to decide if they are just going to cut the crop for hay or continue the harvest soon after frost damage. But analyzing grains is difficult, time-consuming and uses destructive sampling.

Frost-damaged barley in field trials. Source: University of Adelaide

Cereal crops are typically barley and wheat, which have a wide range of susceptibility to frost damage, depending on genetics, management practices, environmental conditions and interactions. Even a 1° temperature difference can increase a 10% loss to a 90% loss.

The team’s state-of-the-art imaging system could be used to scan barley and wheat spikes for frost damage as frost symptoms sometimes do not show up in barley or wheat until days after a frost event. Terahertz waves could penetrate the spike to determine the difference between frosted and unfrosted grains with repeatable results.

The imaging could also determine individual grain positions along the length of individual spikes. The team said this technology would be developed into a field-based tool for farmers, researchers, plant breeders and agronomists in the field. They are developing a working prototype.

A paper on this technology was published in Optics Express.