Science Fair Projects - Stress on Plants

Name: Kendra
Grade: Year High School - Home School
Age 17
Texas
Science Category: Earth Environment - Biology - Botany
Kendra's project starts here...Digital Photography Science Fair Projects

Experiment: Part 1
So, I set off with my Canon PowerShot S3IS Digital Camera and a Hoya 58mm Infrared (R72) Camera Filter to collect my data. I had a journal where I logged my camera settings, the visible health of the plant, what time I took the picture, the weather conditions, the date, and of course the plant I photographed.

Over a course of seven months, I took five pictures of each of the following plants: Crape Myr-tle, Afghan Pine, Basil, Texas Sage, Bermuda grass, and Golden Variegated Euonymus. Each time I took a picture of each plant, I took a regular colored photograph and then a black and white NIR photograph making sure the settings were the same each time.

My colored photographs were my control. I used them to identify visible damage, disease or stress in the plants. Then I could compare what I saw in the color photos with the NIR photos. If the NIR photos showed dark spots where the color photos showed damage, I could be sure that damage could be detected with NIR photography.

Results and Conclusions: Part 1

RESULTS OF BERMUDA GRASS
After closely examining each group of the specific plants, I found the Bermuda grass was dormant during the month of March. Thus, in the color photo the grass was brown, but did contain some green weeds and sprouts of green grass. The NIR photo showed the brown dormant grass as quite a bit darker than the green grass and weeds. April showed similar results where several dark spots (dead grass) along with the lighter patches (live grass) were detected. During the month of June, the grass was very green and healthy; the NIR photo was very light and very few areas were dark.

can see the green bermuda grass color - March Color	Some brown spots can be seen - April Color	Grass appears green and healthy - June Color
Green growth appears lighter - March--NIR	Brown spots appear darker - April--NIR	Grass appears bright and uniform - June--NIR

July Color	Brown spotting September Color
July Color -- NIR	Brown spots appear darker September--NIR

RESULTS OF EUONYMOUS
In the euonymus I found that progressively through the summer months, the plant got "lighter" in the NIR photographs which I believe was because it was in its growing season. The mesophyll was healthy and therefore reflecting a high amount of NIR energy. When looking at the close ups of the euonymus in March, I did identify some of the tips of the leaves that were brown. In the NIR photo they showed up darker than the rest of the leaves.

Leaf damage March Color	April Color	June Color
Leaf damage appears darker March--NIR	April--NIR	June--NIR

July Color	September Color
July Color -- NIR	September--NIR

To see more of Kendra's photography experiments look at science fair ideas that deal with photography.

Overall, I found I was definitely able to see plant stress (showing up darker) and new growth (showing up lighter) in the NIR photos thus proving my hypothesis that I could detect plant stress (disease, damage, insect infestation, or environmental factors) in plants using Near Infrared photography.