Thirsty Plants Can Now Send Text Messages

I object to the sensationalist "THEY can send text messages".

You've got a sensor, and the sensor communicates back along a channel.

This is like saying that "stars can now imprint their images on photographic film". In fact, you've connected a camera to a telescope.

Neat idea but it seem really impractical. A sensor on every plant? What happens when a leaf falls off? Are you going to have a sensor that is saying "water me now!" until it is recovered? Is there really that much different between plants of the same species planted right next to each other that they'd each need a sensor?

It would seem better to have a small cluster of sensors every 100m or so. That way you could water the areas that need it and have a bit of fault-tolerance (in case one sensor in the group falls to the ground you have the others in the group reporting correctly).

Having said that though don't modern farmers already have technology that tells them when to water and how much? I vaguely recalled reading something about that kind of technology years ago.

Now we can have a fully automated garden which, once it is in full bloom, will also send a message to a machine that delivers a chemical to our brains that give us the feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction that comes from working on a garden.

$250? This is much cheaper http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/02/how_to_make_plants_...

For a while I wanted to write an app that'd send you reminders when it was time to water your plants (based on factors like the plant type, the weather, etc...) but there are just too many vagaries to make accurate predictions. IE, your house may be particularly dry due to your particular AC unit, and so you may need to water twice as often as someone with higher humidity.

This, on the other hand, makes a lot more sense.