2026 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 6-14
Assessing the maturity and size of crops with below-ground edible parts, such as potatoes (Solanum tuberosum), traditionally requires labour-intensive digging and excavation. This study evaluates the use of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) as a non-destructive tool for monitoring potato growth under varying soil moisture levels and tuber sizes in pot conditions. Our results show that both tuber size and soil moisture content significantly impact the quality of potato reconstructions using EIT. At low soil moisture levels (around 10 %), tubers are not detectable due to high impedance, but their visibility improves as moisture increases to 28–35 %. Larger tubers yield more accurate reconstructions across all frequencies, while smaller tubers perform better at lower frequencies (below 5 kHz).
