Abstract
AbstractOptimizing root systems is one crucial point in drought tolerance breeding of plants. Introducing root‐related traits to breeding programmes is time‐consuming and laborious. Most of the commonly used methods are not suitable to be applied in a larger amount of plants. Here we present a study applying a DNA‐based root phenotyping method (root DNA density; RDD) for phenotyping the root system of maize. Twenty‐one maize inbred lines were investigated in a rain‐out shelter experiment and 19 maize inbred lines in a greenhouse experiment under well‐watered and drought conditions. Beside other commonly used root traits, agronomic traits of the plants were recorded and compared to RDD. Within root traits, RDD showed high significant genotypic variation and the highest repeatabilities of up to 72.4%. In contrast to most agronomic traits, repeatabilities increased under drought conditions. Values showed also good correlations between rain‐out shelter and greenhouse trial, indicating the potential of this method for obtaining comparable results across different environments.
Highlights
Root characteristics have been recognized as promising and com‐ prehensive traits to improve crop cultivars (Lynch, 2007a; Lynch & Wojciechowski, 2015; Rogers & Benfey, 2014)
root DNA density (RDD) in topsoil showed the highest repeatability of all traits (72.4%), whereas the shoot‐ related traits showed reduced repeatablilties for FFlow (59.2%) and kernels per ear (KPE) (39.9%) as well as no significant genotypic variation for kernel and biomass yield
Influence of water availability and sampling depth on RDD was significantly reduced in subsoil compared with topsoil and under drought conditions compared with the well‐watered treatment (Figure 3)
Summary
Root characteristics have been recognized as promising and com‐ prehensive traits to improve crop cultivars (Lynch, 2007a; Lynch & Wojciechowski, 2015; Rogers & Benfey, 2014). Breeding approaches employing root traits to improve crop ger‐ mplasm are only modest (Lynch & Brown, 2012; Zhu, Ingram, Benfey, & Elich, 2011), mainly because suitable phenotyping methods in field environments are lacking (Comas, Becker, Cruz, Byrne, & Dierig, 2013; Meister, Rajani, Ruzicka, & Schachtman, 2014; Tuberosa, 2012). The calculation of the absolute root DNA amount in a given soil volume leaded to the trait called root DNA density (RDD) It has been shown for subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum L) and ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) that RDD accurately describes dif‐ ferent masses of root tissue added to a given amount of soil (Riley et al, 2009). A comparison to other commonly applied methods of root phenotyping and impact on above‐ground plant performance was investigated
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