High-throughput physiological phenotyping and screening system for the characterization of plant-environment interactions.

Abstract

We present a simple and effective high-throughput experimental platform for simultaneous and continuous monitoring of water relations in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum of numerous plants under dynamic environmental conditions. This system provides a simultaneously measured, detailed physiological response profile for each plant in the array, over time periods ranging from a few minutes to the entire growing season, under normal, stress and recovery conditions and at any phenological stage. Three probes for each pot in the array and a specially designed algorithm enable detailed water-relations characterization of whole-plant transpiration, biomass gain, stomatal conductance and root flux. They also enable quantitative calculation of the whole plant water-use efficiency and relative water content at high resolution under dynamic soil and atmospheric conditions. The system has no moving parts and can fit into many growing environments. A screening of 65 introgression lines of a wild tomato species (Solanum pennellii) crossed with cultivated tomato (S. lycopersicum), using our system and conventional gas-exchange tools, confirmed the accuracy of the system as well as its diagnostic capabilities. The use of this high-throughput diagnostic screening method is discussed in light of the gaps in our understanding of the genetic regulation of whole-plant performance, particularly under abiotic stress.

Plant phenotyping relevance

植物の水分関係・生理形質を連続かつ高スループットに取得する実験プラットフォームとアルゴリズムを開発し、従来法で精度を検証しているため、方法が研究の中心である。

Code and data availability

The supplied blocks describe the lysimeter phenotyping system, data-analysis equations, and Matlab/ImageJ analysis, but contain no public phenotype dataset, image collection, author code deposit, or trained model. The only URLs are vendor pages (Heraeus, ImageJ) and the Minerva Access repository record, which is just a

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