Frost Damage Index: The Antipode of Growing Degree Days

Abstract

Abiotic stresses such as heat and frost limit plant growth and productivity. Image-based field phenotyping methods allow quantifying not only plant growth but also plant senescence. Winter crops show senescence caused by cold spells, visible as declines in leaf area. We accurately quantified such declines by monitoring changes in canopy cover based on time-resolved high-resolution imagery in the field. Thirty-six winter wheat genotypes were measured in multiple years. A concept termed "frost damage index" (FDI) was developed that, in analogy to growing degree days, summarizes frost events in a cumulative way. The measured sensitivity of genotypes to the FDI correlated with visual scorings commonly used in breeding to assess winter hardiness. The FDI concept could be adapted to other factors such as drought or heat stress. While commonly not considered in plant growth modeling, integrating such degradation processes may be key to improving the prediction of plant performance for future climate scenarios.

Plant phenotyping relevance

圃場の時系列高解像度画像からキャノピー被覆率の変化を定量化し、霜害指数（FDI）を開発・検証しており、画像ベース表現型取得が研究の中心である。

Code and data availability

The authors state that all analysis code for the Frost Damage Index is publicly available on GitLab with example data; the full phenotype dataset is only available upon request.