tl;dr... "...there are several ongoing epidemics that affect crops and put global food production at risk. Oranges, olives, and bananas are already under threa

tl;dr... "...there are several ongoing epidemics that affect crops and put global food production at risk. Oranges, olives, and bananas are already under threat in many areas due to diseases that affect plants' circulatory systems and that cannot be treated by applying pesticides." "The method uses an array of microneedles made of a silk-based biomaterial to deliver nutrients, drugs, or other molecules to specific parts of the plant." "The microneedles, which the researchers call phytoinjectors, can be made in a variety of sizes and shapes, and can deliver material specifically to a plant's roots, stems, or leaves, or into its xylem (the vascular tissue involved in water transportation from roots to canopy) or phloem (the vascular tissue that circulates metabolites throughout the plant). In lab tests, the team used tomato and tobacco plants, but the system could be adapted to almost any crop, they say. The microneedles can not only deliver targeted payloads of molecules into the plant, but they can also be used to take samples from the plants for lab analysis."