A low-cost platform for phenotyping plant growth and water use

PEREYRA IRUJO, G.A.; GASCO, E.D.; AGUIRREZÁBAL, L.A.N.

Jülich

Simposio; II International Plant Phenotyping Symposium; 2011

Forschungszentrum Jülich

Advances in genotyping technologies have lowered the cost-per-genotype to levels that enabled an explosion of genetic studies in many fields. As a consequence, phenotyping has become a bottleneck for understanding the genetic basis of complex traits (e.g. water deficit tolerance). Available plant phenotyping platforms, especially those that automate not only measurement, but also cultivation and irrigation of crop plants, have a cost which can be excessive for many research institutes or breeding companies. Lowering the cost of these platforms could therefore lead to a rapid expansion of breeding projects targeting complex traits. We developed a low-cost, flexible, automatic platform for high-throughput measurement of plant water use and growth. This was achieved through a simple design (with few moving parts) and using mostly standard components. This platform consists of four 10m-long, bridge-like structures supporting 120 pots, and a moving kart located under this structure, carrying a personal computer connected to four balances, four peristaltic pumps, and eight webcams. The platform is controlled by a simple software, which uses Excel files with daily or hourly routines as input, and Access database files as output. An image analysis pipeline for the estimation of leaf area is currently being developed. It has been successfully used to analyze soybean growth under 7 soil water contents, and hourly transpiration rates in sunflower. The construction and maintenance costs of this platform are significantly lower than commercially available platforms. We believe that this kind of low-cost platform is therefore suitable for mid- or low-budget research groups or seed companies all over the world, mainly in developing countries.