High‐throughput estimation of incident light, light interception and radiation‐use efficiency of thousands of plants in a phenotyping platform

Abstract

Light interception and radiation-use efficiency (RUE) are essential components of plant performance. Their genetic dissections require novel high-throughput phenotyping methods. We have developed a suite of methods to evaluate the spatial distribution of incident light, as experienced by hundreds of plants in a glasshouse, by simulating sunbeam trajectories through glasshouse structures every day of the year; the amount of light intercepted by maize (Zea mays) plants via a functional-structural model using three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions of each plant placed in a virtual scene reproducing the canopy in the glasshouse; and RUE, as the ratio of plant biomass to intercepted light. The spatial variation of direct and diffuse incident light in the glasshouse (up to 24%) was correctly predicted at the single-plant scale. Light interception largely varied between maize lines that differed in leaf angles (nearly stable between experiments) and area (highly variable between experiments). Estimated RUEs varied between maize lines, but were similar in two experiments with contrasting incident light. They closely correlated with measured gas exchanges. The methods proposed here identified reproducible traits that might be used in further field studies, thereby opening up the way for large-scale genetic analyses of the components of plant performance.

Accelerating genetic gains in legumes for the development of prosperous smallholder agriculture: integrating genomics, phenotyping, systems modelling and agronomy

“…The University of Western Australia, Australia has developed a semi-hydroponic phenotyping system that examines architecture of deep root system and is amenable for phenotyping large sets of plants in a relatively small space (Chen et al, 2011). The salient features of several high throughput phenotyping platforms, such as PHENOPSIS (Bresson et al, 2015;Granier et al, 2006), PhenoArch (Cabrera-Bosquet et al, 2016), DEEPER PHENOSCOPE (Bresson et al, 2015), and RADIX (Le Marié et al, 2016), are summarized in Table 2. Robotic-assisted imaging platforms and computer visionassisted analysis tools have also been developed for precise phenotyping of physiological growth, development, and other phenotypic properties (Fahlgren et al, 2015a,b).…”

“…plant-phenotyping.eu), European Plant Phenotyping Infrastructure (EMPHASIS), and International Plant Phenotyping Network (IPPN; https://www.plant-phenotyping.org/). These infrastructure networks enable access to the necessary tools for phenotyping, in particular robot-assisted image capture (Cooper et al, 2009;Fiorani and Schurr, 2013), statistical designs and models for extracting relevant physiological variables from raw data (Cabrera-Bosquet et al, 2016), and specialized information systems managing large datasets originating from phenotyping experiments (Tardieu et al, 2017). GrowScreen-PaGe is a non-invasive, high-throughput phenotyping system developed at the Institute of Biosciences Accelerating genetic gains in legumes | 3295 (Lee et al, 2015) • 286 (14 wild, 153 landraces and 119 elite; Zhou et al, 2015b) • Illumina 384 SNP VeraCode assays (Lee et al, 2015) • NJAU 355 K SoySNP array • Illumina Infinium SoySNP6K…”

Abscisic Acid Down-Regulates Hydraulic Conductance of Grapevine Leaves in Isohydric Genotypes Only

“…Well-watered conditions, corresponding to a soil water content of 1.5 g water g 21 dry soil, were imposed on one-half of the plants, while the other one-half was submitted to a moderate soil water deficit (1.05 g water g 21 dry soil). Detailed information of PHENOARCH platform and measurement of environmental conditions is described in (Cabrera-Bosquet et al, 2016). At the end of the high-throughput experiment in the greenhouse, the plants were transferred outside, where they were grown for one additional year and pruned to produce one, unbranched leafy axis with their inflorescences removed.…”

Model‐Driven Multidisciplinary Global Research to Meet Future Needs: The Case for “Improving Radiation Use Efficiency to Increase Yield”

“…Highthroughput phenotyping methods (both in the field and in controlled conditions) will be developed for RUE (Cabrera-Bosquet et al, 2016), but also for lower-scale traits indicative of photosynthetic efficiency or impairment such as chlorophyll fluorescence or photosystem quenching (Stinziano et al, 2017). Highthroughput phenotyping methods (both in the field and in controlled conditions) will be developed for RUE (Cabrera-Bosquet et al, 2016), but also for lower-scale traits indicative of photosynthetic efficiency or impairment such as chlorophyll fluorescence or photosystem quenching (Stinziano et al, 2017).…”