Flexible Mechanical Sensors for Plant Growth Monitoring: An Emerging Area for Smart Agriculture

The last decade has seen significant progress in the development of flexible electronics and sensors, particularly for display technologies and healthcare applications. Advancements in scalable manufacturing, miniaturization, and integration have further extended the use of this new class of devices to smart agriculture, where multimodal sensors can be seamlessly attached to plants for continuous and remote monitoring. Among the various types of sensing devices for agriculture, flexible mechanical sensors have emerged as promising candidates for monitoring vital parameters, including growth rates and water flow, providing a new avenue for understanding plant health and growth under varied environmental conditions. This perspective provides a snapshot of recent progress in this exciting and unconventional area of research and highlights potential opportunities for the future.