Temporal phenotypic variation of spinach root traits and its relation to shoot performance.

Abstract

The root system is important for the growth and development of spinach. To reveal the temporal variability of the spinach root system, root traits of 40 spinach accessions were measured at three imaging times (20, 30, and 43 days after transplanting) in this study using a non-destructive and non-invasive root analysis system. Results showed that five root traits were reliably measured by this system (RootViz FS), and two of which were highly correlated with manually measured traits. Root traits had higher variations than shoot traits among spinach accessions, and the trait of mean growth rate of total root length had the largest coefficients of variation across the three imaging times. During the early stage, only tap root length was weakly correlated with shoot traits (plant height, leaf width, and object area (equivalent to plant surface area)), whereas in the third imaging, root fresh weight, total root length, and root area were strongly correlated with shoot biomass-related traits. Five root traits (total root length, tap root length, total root area, root tissue density, and maximal root width) showed high variations with coefficients of variation values (CV ≥ 0.3, except maximal root width) and high heritability (H 2 > 0.6) among the three stages. The 40 spinach accessions were classified into five subgroups with different growth dynamics of the primary and lateral roots by cluster analysis. Our results demonstrated the potential of in-situ phenotyping to assess dynamic root growth in spinach and provide new perspectives for biomass breeding based on root system ideotypes.

Plant phenotyping relevance

RootViz FSによる非破壊・非侵襲的な根形質計測とその信頼性評価が研究の中心であり、動的な根系表現型の取得・解析を実施している。

Code and data availability

The paper reports spinach root/shoot phenotyping (RootViz FS X-ray imaging and Scanalyzer 3D) on 40 accessions, but no public repository deposit of the phenotype datasets, root images, or analysis code is provided. The Data availability statement says datasets are available only from the corresponding author on request