Non-invasive monitoring of red beet development

Agricultural monitoring is required to enhance crop production, control plant stress, and predict pests and crop infection. Apart from monitoring the external influences, the state of the plant itself must be tracked. However, the modern methods for plant analysis are expensive and require plants processing often in a destructive way. Optical spectroscopy can be used for the non-invasive monitoring requiring no consumables, and little to none sample preparation. In this context, we found that the red beet growth can be monitored by Raman spectroscopy. Our analysis shows that, as plants age, the rate of betalain content increases. This increase makes betalain dominate the whole Raman spectra over other plant components. The dominance of betalain facilitates its use as a molecular marker for plant growth. This finding has implications in the understanding of plant physiology, particularly important for greenhouse growth and the optimization of external conditions such as artificial illumination.