Abstract
The development of crop varieties with higher nitrogen use efficiency is crucial for sustainable crop production. Combining high-throughput genotyping and phenotyping will expedite the discovery of novel alleles for breeding crop varieties with higher nitrogen use efficiency. Digital and hyperspectral imaging techniques can efficiently evaluate the growth, biophysical, and biochemical performance of plant populations by quantifying canopy reflectance response. Here, these techniques were used to derive automated phenotyping of indicator biomarkers, biomass and chlorophyll levels, corresponding to different nitrogen levels. A detailed description of digital and hyperspectral imaging and the associated challenges and required considerations are provided, with application to delineate the nitrogen response in wheat. Computational approaches for spectrum calibration and rectification, plant area detection, and derivation of vegetation index analysis are presented. We developed a novel vegetation index with higher precision to estimate chlorophyll levels, underpinned by an image-processing algorithm that effectively removed background spectra. Digital shoot biomass and growth parameters were derived, enabling the efficient phenotyping of wheat plants at the vegetative stage, obviating the need for phenotyping until maturity. Overall, our results suggest value in the integration of high-throughput digital and spectral phenomics for rapid screening of large wheat populations for nitrogen response.
Highlights
Low levels of nitrogen (N) in arable soils limit crop productivity.This constraint has largely been relieved since the development of synthetic N fertilizers, combined with the use of high-yielding crop varieties and irrigation in some parts of the world, all of which are key components of the green revolution
Wheat plants grown in nutrient-free growth medium were evaluated for biomass and yield responses under N levels ranging from 0.2 to 20 mM N (Supplementary Figs S1A and S2C)
The four wheat varieties showed an incremental increase in dry biomass and seed yield from low to high N levels.The trend for dry biomass accumulation at both the vegetative growth and the maturity stage as well as seed yield at a given N level were similar across all varieties (Fig. 3A–C)
Summary
Low levels of nitrogen (N) in arable soils limit crop productivity.This constraint has largely been relieved since the development of synthetic N fertilizers, combined with the use of high-yielding crop varieties and irrigation in some parts of the world, all of which are key components of the green revolution. Automated digital phenotyping for N response in wheat | 4605 small amounts (
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