Even plants can run a fever, especially when they’re under attack by insects or disease. But unlike humans, plants can have their temperature taken from 3,000 feet above them. A decade ago, adapting the infrared（红外线）scanning technology developed for military purposes and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley came up with a quick way to take the temperature of crops to determine which ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmers spray pesticide（杀虫剂）exactly rather than rain poison plants on a whole field, which invariably includes plants that don’t have pest（害虫）problems.
Even better, Paley’s Remote Scanning Services Company could detect crop problems before they became visible to the eye. Mounted on a plane flown at 3,000 feet at night, an in frared scanner measured the heat sent out by crops. The data were transformed into a color-coded map showing where plants were running “fevers”. Farmers could then spot-spray, using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide than they otherwise would.
The bad news is that Paley’s company closed down in 1984, after only three years. Farmers resisted the new technology and long-term backers were hard to find. But with the renewed concern about pesticides on produce, and improvement in infrared scanning, Paley hopes to get back into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt the technology works. “This technique can be used on 75 percent of agricultural land in the United States,” says George Oerther of Texas A&M. Ray Jackson, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture,It also thinks remote infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade.

即使植物也会发烧，特别是当它们受到害虫或疾病袭击的时候。但与人类不同是，植物的温度可以从距它们之上3000英尺的地方测出。10年前，通过采用为军事和其它人造卫星所开发的红外线扫描技术，物理学家史帝芬佩利提出了一个快速测出农作物温度的方法来判断哪些作物正受到伤害。目的是让农民在正确的地方喷射杀虫剂，而不是在整个土地上像下雨一样向植物到处喷射毒药，因为这样会将没有虫害的植物包括进来。

更好的是，佩利的远程扫描服务公司能够在人眼发觉之前测出作物的问题。夜晚，红外线扫描仪被安装在飞翔于3000英尺高空的飞机上，它能测出农作物散发的热量。这些热量的数据之后被转换成以颜色为标记的地图，在这张地图上可以看出哪里的植物正在发烧。然后，农民就可以分地点喷射农药，药量比过去少了百分之五十到百分之七十。

遗憾的是，仅仅三年后，佩利的公司于1984年倒闭了。农民们抵抗这种新技术，并且很难找到新技术的长期拥护者。但是随着最新的农药产量问题的发生以及红外扫描技术的改进，佩利想让这种技术重新付诸实践。农业专家也毫不怀疑这项技术的使用。美国得克萨斯州的George Oerther说：“这项技术能在美国百分之七十五的耕地上使用”最近刚从农业部退休的Ray Jackson也认为远程红外农作物扫描技术能在这个十年末被应用。