Phenotyping root traits for vegetable crop improvement: Advanced tools and techniques

Abstract

Information on root system architecture is critical to understand crop or cultivar adaptations to variable and dynamic soil environments. Breeders are searching for certain root traits associated with enhanced resource acquisition capacity and adjustments to stress environments. However, the selection for root architectural traits in breeding programmees has been limited by the lack of appropriate root phenotyping techniques. Although vegetable crops possess wide variability for root traits and greatly vary in crop management strategies but a very limited progress has been reported on root system architecture assessment of these crops. This work critically summarizes the potential tools and techniques for high-throughput phenotyping of root architectural traits in vegetable crops. Both destructive as well as non-destructive techniques have been discussed. Several novel imaging technologies in conjunction with image analysis software tools present a great opportunity for in situ root system assessment for cultivar selection in vegetable breeding programmemes.