Abstract

The recent surge in ‘Precision agriculture’ is fueled by the acute need of food security felt worldwide to feed the global burgeoning population. To this effect, various optical techniques have recently been employed to characterize the biochemical processes in various parts of the plants [1]. Terahertz (THz) region (0.3 – 10 THz) has gathered momentum in this field as it is biologically safe, can penetrate food packaging and most importantly, has fingerprinting ability of various organic and inorganic molecules due to active rotational and vibrational modes [2]. Moreover, unlike other optical spectroscopic techniques, THz time domain spectroscopic (THz-TDS) technique records the information in form of THz electric field; which once converted to frequency domain provides both amplitude and phase information [3]. Additionally, THz waves are highly absorbed by water which in turn can be utilized for quantitative water status monitoring in plants [4].

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