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Even plants can run a fever, especially when they're under attack by insects or disease.
But unlike humans, plants can have their temperature taken from 3,000 feet away-straight up.
A decade ago, adapting the infrared (红外线) scanning technology developed for military
purposes and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley came up with a quick way to take the
temperature of crops to determine which ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmers
precisely target pesticide (杀虫剂) spraying rather than rain poison on a whole field, which
invariably includes plants that don't have pest problems.
Even better, Paley's Remote Scanning Services Company could detect crop problems
before they became visible to the eye. Mounted on a plane flown at 3,000 feet at night, an
infrared scanner measured the heat emitted by crops. The data were transformed into a
color-coded map showing where plants were running "fevers". Farmers could then spot-spray,
using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide than they otherwise would.
The bad news is that Paley's company closed down in l984, after only three years. Farmers
resisted the new technology and long-term backers were hard to find. But with the renewed
concern about pesticides on produce, and refinements in infrared scanning, Paley hopes to get
back into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt the technology works. "This technique
can be used on 75 percent of agricultural land in the United States", says George Oerther of
Texas A & M. Ray Jackson, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture, thinks
remote infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But only if Paley
finds the financial backing which he failed to obtain 10 years ago.
1. Plants will emit an increased amount of heat when they are ________.
A. sprayed with pesticides
B. facing an infrared scanner
C. in poor physical condition
D. exposed to excessive sun rays
2. In order to apply pesticide spraying precisely, we can use infrared scanning to .
A. estimate the damage to the crops
B. draw a color-coded map
C. measure the size of the affected area
D. locate the problem area
3. Farmers can save a considerable amount of pesticide by .
A. resorting to spot-spraying
B. consulting infrared scanning experts
C. transforming poisoned rain
D. detecting crop problems at an early date
4. The application of infrared scanning technology to agriculture met with some difficulties due to .
A. the lack of official support
B. its high cost
C. the lack of financial support
D. its failure to help increase production
5. Infrared scanning technology may be brought back into operation because of .
A. the desire of farmers to improve the quality of their produce
B. growing concern about the excessive use of pesticides on crops
C. the forceful promotion by the Department of Agriculture
D. full support from agricultural experts
