Soft Robotic Gripper Injects Leaves With Precision

Jun 17, 2025

By Stephen D’Angelo

Tools that offer early and accurate insight into plant health – and allow individual plant interventions – are key to increasing crop yields as environmental pressures increasingly impact horticulture and agriculture.

In response to this challenge, Cornell researchers have developed a soft robotic device that gently grips and injects living plant leaves with sensors that help it detect and communicate with its environment. The robot can also inject genetic material that could be used for bioengineering plants in the future.

The device allows for safe, repeatable delivery of sensors and genetic material in a reliable, plant-safe way – an essential step in precision, data-driven agriculture. The team’s findings were published in Science Robotics.

Funding for the research was provided by the National Science Foundation under a five-year, $25 million grant supporting the Cornell-led Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS).

Source : cornell.edu

Video: No-Till vs Tillage: Why Neighboring Fields Are World Apart

“No-till means no yield.”

“No-till soils get too hard.”

But here’s the real story — straight from two fields, same soil, same region, totally different outcomes.

Ray Archuleta of Kiss the Ground and Common Ground Film lays it out simply:

Tillage is intrusive.

No-till can compact — but only when it’s missing living roots.

Cover crops are the difference-maker.

In one field:

No-till + covers ? dark soil, aggregates, biology, higher organic matter, fewer weeds.

In the other:

Heavy tillage + no covers ? starving soil, low diversity, more weeds, fragile structure.

The truth about compaction?

Living plants fix it.

Living roots leak carbon, build aggregates, feed microbes, and rebuild structure — something steel never can.

Ready to go deeper into the research behind no-till yields, rotations, and profitability?