The
pressure bomb is an
infernal little device used to test the
water stress level of
plants. Appropriately enough, the company making this machine was actually called
PMS (i believe
Pressure Monitoring Systems).. The premise of the machine is that you clamp a plant into a little
chamber, with the stem sticking out. Then you pressurize the
chamber and watch the stem until water comes bubbling out, at which point you note the pressure in the
chamber This supposedly measures how hard the plant is '
sucking', basically.
This machine is a pain in the butt to use, and occasionally it would actually shoot the whole stem out of the chamber.
The worst of it all was that someone decided that it was best to test the plants before sunrise. So we'd be out there at 4 AM trying to cross a flooded creek in below freezing conditions, climbing down cliffs, and cutting sticks off of trees. Whoever invented this Pressure Bomb thing should be shot.