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  3. Even plants can run a fever, especially when they’re under attack by insects or disease. But unlike humans, plants can have thei

Even plants can run a fever, especially when they’re under attack by insects or disease. But unlike humans, plants can have thei

admin2011-05-29  51
问题     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 away-- straight up. A decade ago, adapting the infrared 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 precisely target pesticide (杀虫剂) spraying rather than rain poison 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 infrared scanner measured the heat emitted by crops. The data were transformed into a color-coded map showing where plants were running "fevers". Farmers could then spot-spray, using 40 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 refinements 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, thinks remote infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But only if Paley finds the financial backing which he failed to obtain 10 years ago.  
The application of infrared scanning technology to agriculture met with some difficulties because of ______.
选项 A、the lack of official support
B、its high cost
C、the lack of financial support
D、its failure to help increase production
答案C
解析 依据文章第三段的第一至二行可以看出红外线扫描技术应用于农业遇到了一些问题，原因有两个：一是农民对新技术的抵制，二是难以找到长期赞助商。文章中最后一段的最后一句提供的信息同样可以反推出10年前的情形。
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