Application of High Throughput Phenotyping via Plantscreen System to Study Early Plant Stress Responses to Progressive Drought Stress

The use of advanced phenotyping that offers application of automated, high-throughput methods for characterization of plant architecture and performance has the potential for improvement of breeding process of different important crops, such as e.g. drought tolerant maize cultivars.

Conveyor based PlantScreen System developed in Photon System Instruments (PSI) is designed to serve as high-throughput screening platform for plant phenotyping in various species from Arabidopsis to crop plants. PlantScreen is configured for non-destructive measurement and image analysis in automated software operated system. The system contains several modules, which are designed for complex automated phenotypic analysis including chlorophyll fluorescence imaging, thermal imaging, RGB imaging, hyperspectral analysis and automated weighting and watering system.

PlantScreen Data Analyser was developed for automated data processing, statistical analysis and export of the measured parameters for individual plants or traits in time. In the acclimatization chamber which is part of the PlantScreen system, different light, humidity and temperature conditions can be controlled. This offers an opportunity to perform kinetic measurements under various abiotic conditions.

Recently we have used the PlantScreen System to study response of various Arabidopsis starch related mutants to drought stress conditions. We have optimized the screening conditions and the image processing analysis to obtain quantitative assessment of plant complex traits such as growth, development and physiological status. By using combination of chlorophyll fluorescence imaging, thermal imaging and morphology image analysis we have recognized a set of parameters that could serve as early stress markers for characterization of plant performance under adverse environmental conditions such as drought.