Monitoring Water Status of Grapevine by Means of THz Waves

Monitoring grapevine water status by means of measuring the reflectivity at the trunk in the terahertz band is presented. A grapevine is located inside a growth chamber to simulate diverse outdoor conditions and correlate them with variations produced in the reflected signal of the trunk. Modifications of light conditions, temperature, and irrigation of the grapevine are recorded either in time domain broadband measurements as well as in the magnitude and phase of narrowband measurements in the frequency domain. The results are compared with traditional techniques using a dendrometer and a humidity probe with excellent agreement.