Abstract
BackgroundViolent movement of crop stems can lead to failure under high winds. Known as lodging, this phenomenon is particularly detrimental to cool-season cereals such as oat, barley, and wheat; contributing to yield and economic losses. Phenotyping the movement of cereal crops in real-time could aid in the breeding and selecting of lodging resistant cereals. Since no methods exist to quantify dynamic, real time plant responses in an agricultural setting, we devised a video analysis protocol to quantify mean frequency and amplitude of plant movement for a 360° field of view camera system.ResultsWe present both the image analysis method for identifying predefined regions of a 2D field design as they appear on 360° field of view video, as well as a signal processing pipeline to quantify movement from time varying color signals from plot canopies within these predefined field regions. We detected significant differences in the natural frequency and amplitude of plant movement from video of 16 cereal cultivars planted in a randomized complete block design on five different windy days. Natural frequencies quantified by this method averaged 1.37 Hz, while over 2.5-fold differences in amplitude within similar frequency ranges were detected across the 16 cereal cultivars.ConclusionsThis method is sensitive enough to systematically differentiate small frequency and amplitude differences in cultivar movement, and shows promise for investigating the physiological basis for differences in cereal movement and lodging resistance. The relative accuracy of the plot demarcation protocol suggests it could be used for other high-throughput phenotyping applications that require both high image resolution and a large field of view.
Highlights
Violent movement of crop stems can lead to failure under high winds
The camera track system was designed for quantifying lodging and plant movement under field wind conditions, with open source design plans [19]
We submit a novel video analysis pipeline that enables the automatic demarcation of agricultural plots from 360 video and a signal processing pipeline for analyzing color signals of plant movement in common field experimental designs
Summary
Violent movement of crop stems can lead to failure under high winds. Known as lodging, this phenomenon is detrimental to cool-season cereals such as oat, barley, and wheat; contributing to yield and economic losses. Prior to the failure (lodging) of plant stems under wind stress, an entire plant experiences movement. This movement occurs in plants of all sizes and taxa; it is dependent on plant structural traits and wind conditions, which together govern the failure velocity at which a plant stem will fail in the wind [1, 2]. Increasing stem resistance to wind is of critical interest to breeders of cereal crops such as oat, barley, and wheat, where development of lodging resistant varieties is a continuous challenge. The natural frequency (ωn) at which a plant stem moves is governed by the ratio of stem stiffness to mass per unit length (mp) of the stem [5]: Susko et al Plant Methods (2019) 15:55
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
