Abstract
ABSTRACT: The root system architecture (RSA) of plants and its functioning play a fundamental role in a number of plant growth mechanisms including water and nutrient uptake. Optimization of the RSA is important for stable and increased plant productivity under adverse conditions. Despite its great importance, studying the RSA is notoriously laborious because of the difficulty of accessing the rooting system of plants. We developed a root phenotyping platform, PhenoRoots, which allows for the non-invasive study of plant RSA. The system was built using inexpensive material and was designed to provide medium throughput. Substrate or soil-filled rhizotrons are used to grow plantlets, whose roots are directly visible through a glass plate. An experiment conducted on a panel of twenty Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) varieties demonstrated the usefulness of the platform in assessing RSA traits. A number of traits, destructive and non-destructive, related to the RSA were measured and statistically analyzed. The non-destructive traits based on image analysis of roots were more accurate and showed high correlation with the time-consuming destructive measurements. The platform allowed for capturing the phenotypic and genetic variability found in the panel of cotton varieties, and to define three contrasting RSA patterns. PhenoRoots provides an inexpensive alternative to the medium throughput analysis of RSA traits in plants.
Highlights
Because of its role in a number of fundamental processes in plant development, a better understanding of the root system, and its development of complex interactions with the environment, and the genetic control of root system architecture (RSA) holds great promise for plant improvement
An experiment conducted on a panel of twenty Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) varieties demonstrated the usefulness of the platform in assessing RSA traits
All the plants grown in the rhizotrons showed normal development and growth of both the shoots and the roots (Figures 1C and 2A for cotton, and Figure 2B for soybean and sorghum)
Summary
Because of its role in a number of fundamental processes in plant development, a better understanding of the root system, and its development of complex interactions with the environment, and the genetic control of root system architecture (RSA) holds great promise for plant improvement. The destructive methods basically consist of removing the plant from the soil or from their container in order to weigh the root, both fresh and dry (Shashidhar et al, 2012) These methods are very laborious, cause destruction of the plant and are generally not feasible for large scale experiments. The “GROWSCREENRhizo” platform (Nagel et al, 2012) is a fully-automated phenotyping system that permits the simultaneous measurement of root and shoot growth for plants grown in soil-filled rhizotrons. Most of these new technologies remain very expensive and are not suited to most public improvement programs. An experiment using 20 Upland cotton (G. hirsutum L.) genotypes was conducted to describe its functionalities, and we discuss its advantages over invasive/ destructive methods of root assessment
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