Monitoring of vegetation drying by Brillouin and Raman spectroscopies

Abstract

Raman and Brillouin spectroscopic provide with a powerful way to non-invasively assess both chemical and physical (viscoelastic) properties. In this report, Brillouin microspectroscopy was used for real time analysis of elastic properties of Populus and Geranium leaves, while Raman spectroscopy and imaging were employed for assessment of their chemical variation during drying. When used together, those techniques can improve our understanding of mechanochemical changes of plants in response to environmental stress and pathogens at microscopic (cellular) level. Our results have demonstrated for the first time the ability of multimodal assessment of elasticity modulus, hydraulic conductance and interatomic vibrational modes in plants as emerging new markers for real time quantitative assessment of agricultural crops.