Whole-Plant Physiological Identification and Quantification of Disease Progression

Abstract

Visual estimates of plant symptoms are traditionally used to quantify disease severity. Yet, the methodologies used to assess these phenotypes are often subjective and do not allow tracking of disease progression from very early stages. Here, we hypothesized that quantitative analysis of whole-plant physiological vital functions can be used to objectively determine plant health, providing a more sensitive way to detect disease. We studied the tomato wilt that is caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici. Physiological performance of infected and non-infected tomato plants was compared using a whole-plant pot-based lysimeter functional-phenotyping system in a semi-environmentally controlled greenhouse. Water-balance traits of the plants were measured continuously and simultaneously in a quantitative manner. Infected plants exhibited early reductions in transpiration and biomass gain, which preceded visual disease symptoms. These changes in transpiration proved to be effective quantitative indicators for assessing both plant susceptibility to infection and virulence of the fungus. Physiological changes linked to fungal outgrowth and toxin release contributed to reduced hydraulic conductance during initial infection stages. The functional-phenotyping method objectively captures early-stage disease progression, advancing plant disease research and management. This approach emphasizes the potential of quantitative whole-plant physiological analysis over traditional visual estimates for understanding and detecting plant diseases.

Plant phenotyping relevance

全植物の生理機能を連続測定する機能的フェノタイピング手法を用いて、植物病害の早期進行を定量化しており、表現型取得法が研究の中心である。

Code and data availability

The supplied blocks describe PlantArray lysimeter phenotyping and SPAC-analytics analysis, but no public phenotype dataset, author code repository, trained model, or data deposit is mentioned. SPAC-analytics (https://spac.plant-ditech.com) is a commercial third-party web software, not an authors' public analysis code/或

No evidence-backed public reproduction asset is currently recorded.