Phenotypic Analysis of Germination Time of Individual Seeds Affected by Microenvironment and Management Factors for Cohort Research in Plant Factory

Abstract

Plant phenotyping plays a crucial role in understanding variations in the phenotype of individual plants affected by environment, management, and genotype. Measurement of seed germination is an important phenotyping stage as germination impacts on the whole plant growth process. However, germination measurement has been limited to germination percentage of a seed population. Understanding of the germination time, from sowing to outbreak of the radicle from seed coat, at a single seed level is essential. How individual germination time and further plant growth are affected by its microenvironment and management factors remains elusive. Plant phenotype measurement system was developed to assess individual germination time of romaine lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. var. longifolia), using time-series two-dimensional camera images, and to analyze how microenvironment (volumetric water percent in seed tray, individual seed surface temperature and air temperature) and management factors (coated/uncoated seeds) affect the germination time for plant cohort research, emphasizing practicality in commercial cultivation. Germination experiments were conducted to demonstrate the performance of the system and its applicability for a whole plant growth process in a plant factory for commercial production and/or breeding. The developed phenotyping platform revealed the effects of microenvironment and management factors on germination time of individual seeds.

Plant phenotyping relevance

個体ごとの発芽時間を時系列カメラ画像から測定する植物表現型計測システムを開発し、性能と適用性を実験で示しており、表現型取得法が研究の中心である。

Code and data availability

The article describes a germination phenotyping system (GCB) producing RGB images, GT/annotation CSV datasets, and R-based analysis, but no block contains any public deposit, repository, or availability statement for these paper-specific datasets, images, or code. The only URLs are generic (R project, ISTA rules, CC BY

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