GrowScreen-PaGe, a non-invasive, high-throughput phenotyping system based on germination paper to quantify crop phenotypic diversity and plasticity of root traits under varying nutrient supply
Tania Gioia A B , Anna Galinski A , Henning Lenz A , Carmen Müller A , Jonas Lentz A , Kathrin Heinz A , Christoph Briese A , Alexander Putz A , Fabio Fiorani A , Michelle Watt A , Ulrich Schurr A and Kerstin A. Nagel A C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Institute of Biosciences and Geosciences, IBG-2: Plant Sciences, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425 Jülich, Germany.
B Present address: Scuola di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali, Alimentari e Ambientali, Università degli Studi della Basilicata, viale dell’Ateneo Lucano 10, 85 100 Potenza, Italy.
C Corresponding author. Email: k.nagel@fz-juelich.de
Functional Plant Biology 44(1) 76-93 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP16128
Submitted: 1 April 2016 Accepted: 2 September 2016 Published: 24 October 2016
Abstract
New techniques and approaches have been developed for root phenotyping recently; however, rapid and repeatable non-invasive root phenotyping remains challenging. Here, we present GrowScreen-PaGe, a non-invasive, high-throughput phenotyping system (4 plants min–1) based on flat germination paper. GrowScreen-PaGe allows the acquisition of time series of the developing root systems of 500 plants, thereby enabling to quantify short-term variations in root system. The choice of germination paper was found to be crucial and paper ☓ root interaction should be considered when comparing data from different studies on germination paper. The system is suitable for phenotyping dicot and monocot plant species. The potential of the system for high-throughput phenotyping was shown by investigating phenotypic diversity of root traits in a collection of 180 rapeseed accessions and of 52 barley genotypes grown under control and nutrient-starved conditions. Most traits showed a large variation linked to both genotype and treatment. In general, root length traits contributed more than shape and branching related traits in separating the genotypes. Overall, results showed that GrowScreen-PaGe will be a powerful resource to investigate root systems and root plasticity of large sets of plants and to explore the molecular and genetic root traits of various species including for crop improvement programs.
Additional keywords: growth analysis, nutrient use efficiency, plant phenomics, root growth, screening.
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