Variation Analysis of Root System Development in Wheat Seedlings Using Root Phenotyping System

Ekundayo Adeleke,Reneth Millas,Ali Taheri,Waymon Mcneal,Justin Faris

doi:10.3390/agronomy10020206

Abstract

Root system architecture is a vital part of the plant that has been shown to vary between species and within species based on response to genotypic and/or environmental influences. The root traits of wheat seedlings are critical for their establishment in soil and evidently linked to plant height and seed yield. However, plant breeders have not efficiently developed the role of RSA in wheat selection due to the difficulty of studying root traits. We set up a root phenotyping platform to characterize RSA in 34 wheat accessions. The phenotyping pipeline consists of the germination paper-based moisture replacement system, image capture units, and root-image processing software. The 34 accessions from two different wheat ploidy levels (hexaploids and tetraploids), were characterized in ten replicates. A total of 19 root traits were quantified from the root architecture generated. This pipeline allowed for rapid screening of 340 wheat seedlings within 10 days. At least one line from each ploidy (6× and 4×) showed significant differences (p < 0.05) in measured traits, except for mean seminal count. Our result also showed a strong correlation (0.8) between total root length, maximum depth and convex hull area. This phenotyping pipeline has the advantage and capacity to increase screening potential at early stages of plant development, leading to the characterization of wheat seedling traits that can be further examined using QTL analysis in populations generated from the examined accessions.

Highlights

Roots serve as boundaries between plants and complex soil mediums
Phenotyping of the 34 wheat accessions was divided into three stages, first, setting up the Phenotyping of the 34 wheat accessions was divided into three stages, first, setting up the experiment on the platform; second, the acquisition of root system architecture (RSA) images; and third, the analysis of acquired experiment on the platform; second, the acquisition of RSA images; and third, the analysis of acquired images using open source software (RootNav) [28] (Figure 3)
We found a significant correlation between the total root length, maximum depth and the convex hull area in this study

Summary

Introduction

Roots serve as boundaries between plants and complex soil mediums. Aside from anchoring the plant to soil medium [1], another major function of the root is to provide plant access to nutrient and water uptake. Many environmental factors interact with soils, leading to the spatial and temporal heterogenous nature of the soil [3] This spatial heterogeneity makes studying the roots in soil a multifaceted challenge. The spatial distribution of roots in soil under field conditions demonstrates a considerable amount of variability, since roots respond to heterogeneity in the soil and environmental cues allowing plants to overcome challenges posed by biotic or abiotic factors in soil environment [2]. This spatial distribution of the root system in soil is referred to as root system architecture (RSA).

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