Determination of Moisture Content in Vegetative Cultivated Plants Using Millimeter-Wave Spectroscopy for the Tasks of Increasing Plant Productivity

Genetic and breeding study shows inefficiency of the analysis of the genotype-environment interaction (GEI) in plants at a molecular level, since the GEI effect completely vanishes on such a level being an emergent property resulting from the interaction of gene products with labile (over days, weeks, or months) limiting environmental factors. Such a study should be carried out at higher system levels, in particular, at the next stages of life organization (organismal, population, ecological, and phytocenotic). Since the most powerful effect for an increase in the plant productivity and yield (GEI) cannot be traced at the molecular level, knowledge of the molecular structures of the genome without knowledge of the dynamics of limiting environmental factors and the interaction of gene products with them does not contribute to the development of high technologies for ecological genetic increase in plant productivity and yield. The existing data show that rapid methods for measuring traits of plants that comprehensively characterize complex dynamic system (in particular, GEI) can be created with the aid of interdisciplinary approaches, primarily, using physical experimental methods. In the framework of such an approach, we propose application of millimeter-wave spectroscopy, which is very sensitive to changes in the water supply of plant tissues, for breeding of drought-resistant plants.