The main purpose of the research was to find a less expensive method for sampling isotopes from plants. By collecting plant xylem in a plastic, sealable bag, filling the bag with dry air, letting it sit for 24 hours and then running it through the laser spectrometer, the isotopes of the plants will be traced; specifically, deuterium and oxygen-18. The bag method of this experiment comes from that of Hendry (2015) when he used it on soils. Once the raw data was collected it was transposed from vapor to liquid data. The values found match with previous isotopic collections that were done using IR mass spectrometry. This shows that this inexpensive method was comparable to previous methods and can allow for the study of isotopes to be more accessible to the scientific community
