Water loss measurements can identify plant disease in tomatoes before symptoms appear, flags research

Monitoring subtle changes in tomato plants’ water usage can help detect Fusarium wilt in its early stages, says a study conducted at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. The researchers say that tracking water-relation measurements like transpiration rates, or the rate of a plant’s loss of water, can help identify the disease even before symptoms appear. 

The team believes this “breakthrough” offers a sensitive, quantitative approach to assessing key factors in mitigating crop loss and strengthening agricultural resilience, including disease severity, pathogen virulence, and plant susceptibility.

PhD student Shani Friedman led the study under professor Menachem Moshelion from the university’s Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture.

Fusarium wilt is caused by the soil-borne fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Lycopersici. The disease results in substantial economic losses worldwide. The institute notes that traditionally, detecting such wilts has relied on visual inspection, which can often be subjective and inaccurate. By the time symptoms appear, considerable damage has usually already happened.

The study’s approach focuses on exact water-relation traits using a high-throughput physiological phenotyping system. The research team leveraged advanced lysimeter technology to constantly observe tomato plants’ transpiration rates and biomass changes in a semi-controlled greenhouse environment.

Monitoring transpiration

The team recorded decreased transpiration rates days to weeks before the disease symptoms became visible.

“This research demonstrates that water-related physiological traits like transpiration can act as sensitive, reliable early indicators of Fusarium infection,” says Shani Friedman.

“We were able to quantitatively measure how plants respond to the pathogen well before they exhibited the traditional visible symptoms of disease.”

The method used in the study also measures pathogen virulence and plant susceptibility, which can give researchers and farmers quantitative data to define how aggressively a pathogen is impacting crops. It can also help them assess how resilient different tomato varieties can be to the Fusarium wilt disease.

Prof. Menachem Moshelion says the method can be extrapolated to the study of other plants.

“Our approach opens exciting possibilities for tomato plants and agricultural practices in general. Early detection through physiological monitoring can significantly reduce crop losses and enhance sustainable agricultural management.”

The scientists also applied the methodology to potato plants infected with late blight, for example, to show how the physiological monitoring system can be used to detect and manage other significant plant diseases.

The paper is published in the scientific journal Plant Disease.