In a near future, we could see cyber plants that tell us when they are thirsty, if/what chemical compounds are poisoning them and what parasites are weakening their roots.
They will eventually even tell us how much pollution there is out there in the air. And they could upload all this data online.
Welcome to the first glimpses of the Internet of Plants.
This is at least what Andrea Vitaletti thinks. He is the coordinator of Pleased project. He and other researchers at the project think that plants could serve as ideal sensors because they are cheap and resilient; and they grow almost everywhere, in almost all types of landscapes. So plants could potentially monitor many different things simultaneously and many different places.