Plant Carbon Fixation Estimation by Removing Water Balance Effects
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods struggle to accurately estimate carbon fixation in plants due to variations in plant size being largely influenced by water balance, masking the contribution of carbon fixation and storage changes.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that identify morphologically equivalent days in plant size sequences, apply statistical analysis and smoothing techniques to subtract water balance effects, and estimate carbon fixation by relating plant part size changes to carbon storage using dendrometers and statistical procedures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If plant size is measured to estimate carbon fixation, then carbon storage information can be obtained, but water balance variations mask the carbon fixation signal reducing measurement precision
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes the water balance effect from the plant size measurement data by identifying morphologically equivalent days and subtracting their size differences, isolating the carbon fixation signal from the dominant water balance noise
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces morphologically equivalent day pairs as an intermediary mechanism to mediate between the raw size measurements and the carbon fixation estimation, using statistical analysis to identify and compare equivalent conditions
2Measurement precision
If temporal sequences of plant size are analyzed to separate water balance and carbon fixation effects, then carbon fixation can be estimated, but device complexity increases due to multiple sensors and data processing requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the dendrometer serve multiple functions by using it not only to measure plant size for carbon fixation estimation but also to identify morphologically equivalent days through statistical pattern recognition, reducing the need for separate specialized sensors
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses its own measurement data to identify equivalent conditions and perform the subtraction analysis, making the data self-analyzing without requiring external reference measurements or additional complex instrumentation
Data Source
AI summary
A method of estimating amount of carbon fixation in a plant comprises receiving a set of temporal sequences, respectively corresponding to a set of consecutive days, each sequence describing a size of a part of the plant as measured repeatedly over one of the days. Morphologically equivalent pairs of sequences are identified in the set of sequences, and parameter subtraction is applied between parameters representing sequences in each pair of at least a portion of the pairs, to provide a size change of the plant part for the pair. The method estimates the amount of carbon fixation in the plant based on the size change.