This title appears in the Scientific Report :
2023
Magnetic Resonance Imaging of early wheat seedlings and possible relevance for root water uptake
Magnetic Resonance Imaging of early wheat seedlings and possible relevance for root water uptake
Seed germination and seedling establishment are the first important steps in a plant's growing cycle. We optimized a measurement sequence to quantify the early stages of root development in young seedlings in natural soil. We used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), providing us with 3D informati...
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Personal Name(s): | van Dusschoten, Dagmar (Corresponding author) |
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Pflugfelder, Daniel / Le Gall, Samuel / Koller, Robert | |
Contributing Institute: |
Pflanzenwissenschaften; IBG-2 |
Imprint: |
2023
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Conference: | 7th conference on cereal biotechnology and breeding, wernigerode (Germany), 2023-11-07 - 2023-11-09 |
Document Type: |
Conference Presentation |
Research Program: |
Biological and environmental resources for sustainable use |
Subject (ZB): | |
Publikationsportal JuSER |
Seed germination and seedling establishment are the first important steps in a plant's growing cycle. We optimized a measurement sequence to quantify the early stages of root development in young seedlings in natural soil. We used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), providing us with 3D information about root structures non-invasively. By growing up to 18 seedlings per pot (Ø=12.5cm, 10cm height) and by focusing on early growth (up to 4 days after start of germination), a much higher plant throughput compared to traditional 3D root measurement protocols in soil was achieved. Due to high temporal resolution of the acquired data (4 images per day), dynamic traits such as shoot and root emergence time were obtained accurately. We used this 'deep phenotyping' approach, with several temporal and spatial layers of data, to investigate phenotypic differences within the 8 parent lines of the NIAB MAGIC population. Clear phenotypic differences in structural (e.g. root angle, root lengths, and number) and temporal (e.g. time of root emergence, shoot emergence) were quantified. The initial root angle may be important for rooting depth at later stages which can potentially influence root water uptake (RWU) depth profiles. We show preliminary data using our home-build Soil Water Profiler (SWaP) on localized RWU for wheat plants in relatively wet soil and compare these with results we found for other species. This new MRI automation approach offers a promising tool for high throughput root seedling screening in natural soil environments, along with an opportunity to link the results with physiological measurements on root performance. This work was partly financially supported by BASF. |