Application of Laser Speckle method to Water Flow measurement in plant body

We examined the water flowing quantity measurement in the plant body using the laser speckle method in this research. We use a leaf part of a Pothos (Epipremnum aureum) that is the foliage plant, and a Japanese morning glory (Ipomoea nil) that is the garden plant as the test sample. We fixed the leaf of sample with two acrylic boards, and measured the speckle pattern that changes temporally continuously. We were able to obtain the image that seemed water flow in veins of a leaf of sample by calculating the integration value of two or more images. We also consider that this image expresses the activity of the plant though a precise value is uncertain. This method is noninvasive, needs few apparatuses, and can measure in short time. The application to forestry and agriculture is expected because this new method has these advantages. Especially, we think that it is also possible to combine and to use this new technique for a present field server system in agricultural sector