What diagnostic tools are available in plants?

What diagnostic tools are available in plants?

Useful tools for diagnosis can obviously be high-tech, ranging from ever more elaborate microscopes and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay tests for viruses and fungi in diagnostic labs to equipment from the gas company to check for gas leaks on properties where trees and turfgrass along a gas line are dying. However, for horticulturists making a field diagnosis, basic equipment can be far more manageable and less expensive. Here are six basic items:

Soil probe
This tool is useful diagnostically for soil sampling to check soil pH and nutrient levels. It can help explain, for example, foliar chlorosis due to iron deficiency on acid-loving plants like pachysandra, white pine, river birch, and rhododendron growing in alkaline soils. Probes can have more immediate diagnostic uses as well, such as determining the soil texture, or checking to see how compacted or dry soils are or the depth of mulches.

Hand lens
A good 10X or 20X magnification hand lens is useful to check for mites and small insects on plant foliage or to look for fungal fruiting bodies on leaf tissue.

Cutting tools
Good, sharp hand pruners are important for cutting small twigs to look more closely at stem and leaf problems. It is also unprofessional, to say the least, to collect a sample by stripping a twig from a plant rather than making a good pruning cut.
For larger stems, a small foldable pruning saw is also easy to carry. A knife is useful for cutting into a stem to check for discoloration of the vascular system (typical of Dutch elm disease or Verticillium wilt disease) or to check stems for the presence of insect borers. Although less portable, pruning poles can also be useful tools to get samples from high in a tree.

Digging tools
It is often helpful to dig a bit around the base of a plant to check for girdling roots or twine, to check where the pre-transplant root system was located, or to collect a root sample. A collapsible spade is quite handy, but sometimes blunt, wedge-like knife blades can do the trick.

Recording tools
It is important to take good notes of what you observe to later refresh your own memory and to accurately relay relevant information to others. Have a good field notebook, as well as weatherproof pens and markers. A hand-held recorder can also be helpful if you do many field diagnoses. Finally, a camera can help convey symptoms and site characteristics for others and can be a valuable validation of the plant’s condition at the time of inspection. This photographic evidence becomes especially useful if post-visit changes are made, such as the cutting down of an affected tree.

Sampling equipment
In addition to soil probes and pruners, it is always a good idea to carry along some large plastic bags for collecting samples. Avoid leaving foliage samples exposed to the heat of the sun, and if collecting soil samples for nematodes, a small cooler can be quite helpful.