Spatio-temporal analysis of strawberry architecture: insights into the control of branching and inflorescence complexity.

Abstract

Plant architecture plays a major role in flowering and therefore in crop yield. Attempts to visualize and analyse strawberry plant architecture have been few to date. Here, we developed open-source software combining two- and three-dimensional representations of plant development over time along with statistical methods to explore the variability in spatio-temporal development of plant architecture in cultivated strawberry. We applied this software to six seasonal strawberry varieties whose plants were exhaustively described monthly at the node scale. Results showed that the architectural pattern of the strawberry plant is characterized by a decrease of the module complexity between the zeroth-order module (primary crown) and higher-order modules (lateral branch crowns and extension crowns). Furthermore, for each variety, we could identify traits with a central role in determining yield, such as date of appearance and number of branches. By modeling the spatial organization of axillary meristem fate on the zeroth-order module using a hidden hybrid Markov/semi-Markov mathematical model, we further identified three zones with different probabilities of production of branch crowns, dormant buds, or stolons. This open-source software will be of value to the scientific community and breeders in studying the influence of environmental and genetic cues on strawberry architecture and yield.

Plant phenotyping relevance

イチゴ植物体の時空間的な構造形質を取得・解析するオープンソースソフトウェアを開発しており、表現型取得・解析手法が研究の中心である。

Code and data availability

The paper's strawberry architectural phenotype data (MTG-encoded plant descriptions) are publicly deposited in the authors' GitHub repository, and the OpenAlea.Strawberry analysis/visualization software is open-source on GitHub with a Docker image for deployment. The data.inrae.fr deposits contain only a demonstration,