A team of P3 faculty have been assessing plant performance in the ISU controlled environment facility called the Enviratron. The article, published in Plant Methods, can be viewed here (see full article information at end of story).

P3 faculty Thomas Lubberstedt, Steven Howell, Yanhai Yin, Dan Nettleton, Steve Whitham, Lie Tang, and P3 Co-PI Carolyn Lawrence-Dill comprise about half the team along with ISU students, staff and researchers at Percival Scientific.

The Enviratron facility is unique in that a rover brings measurement sensors to a growth chamber of plants rather taking the plants to a suite of sensors for measurement. In this way, scientists are able to monitor and record the growth of plants without disturbing them.

The Enviratron makes it possible to investigate the effects of climate (and climate change) on crops as the world's population continues grow but the amount of cropland decreases. 

Article information: Bao, Y., Zarecor, S., Shah, D. et al. Plant Methods (2019) 15: 117. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13007-019-0504-y