Use of The Plant Accelerator for high-throughput phenotyping

Australian Plant Phenomics Facility The Plant Accelerator®

www.plantaccelerator.org.au

Use of The Plant Accelerator® for

high-throughput phenotyping

Mark Crowe

October 2011



The Plant Accelerator

• 34 Greenhouses

• 4 Smarthouses

• 2 Imaging suites

• 13 Growth chambers

• Laboratory and offices

• >75 projects completed

• >1,500 plants in Smarthouses



The Team



Drought and salt tolerance

Trait dissection in cereals



Salt tolerance and salinity

• >80% of Australian cereal cropping region

is at risk of being affected by salinity – Rengasamy, 2006

• Salinity costs the Australian economy as

much as $1.3b annually – CRC for Soil and Land Management, 1999



Salinity damaging effects

Ionic effects

Munns and Tester (2009) Annu.Rev. Plant Biol. 59: 651-681

Osmotic effects



Variation in osmotic tolerance

Nawar Shamaya, ACPFG



Salt tolerance hints and tips

• Salt addition

• Concentration

• Calcium supplementation



Drought tolerance

• Drought can more than halve Australia’s

wheat production

• National average yield ~2t/ha



Components of Drought Tolerance

Berger B et al. J. Exp. Bot. 2010;61:3519-3528



Analysing drought response

Barley lines grown under well

watered and drought (-5 bar)

conditions 0,E+00

5,E+04

1,E+05

2,E+05

2,E+05

3,E+05

3,E+05

25 35 45 55 65 75

Leaf

bla

de

are

a [m

m2]

0

0,02

0,04

0,06

0,08

0,1

0,12

0,14

0,16

25 35 45 55 65 75Re

lati

ve g

row

th r

ate

[d

-1]

Time after sowing [d]

Clipper drought Clipper well watered

Boris Parent - ACPFG

0,E+00

5,E+04

1,E+05

2,E+05

2,E+05

3,E+05

3,E+05

25 35 45 55 65 75

Leaf

bla

de

are

a [m

m2]

0

0,02

0,04

0,06

0,08

0,1

0,12

0,14

0,16

25 35 45 55 65 75

Re

lati

ve g

row

th r

ate

[d

-1]

Time after sowing [d]

Sahara drought Sahara well watered



Drought tolerance hints and tips

• Level of drought

• Calibration

• Non-measurable traits



Replacement of destructive

testing

• Biomass measurement

• Chlorophyll content



Using ‘projected shoot area’ as a measure

for plant size and biomass

• Works for various plant types

– Wheat, barley, rice, maize

y = 5,4028x + 15951 R² = 0,9605

0,E+00

1,E+05

2,E+05

3,E+05

4,E+05

5,E+05

6,E+05

0,E+00 2,E+04 4,E+04 6,E+04 8,E+04 1,E+05Pro

ject

ed

sh

oo

t ar

ea

[pix

el]

Leaf blade area [mm2]

y = -5340,7x2 + 97002x + 6824,7 R² = 0,9661

0,E+00

1,E+05

2,E+05

3,E+05

4,E+05

5,E+05

6,E+05

0 2 4 6 8 10

Pro

ject

ed

sh

oo

t ar

ea

[pix

el]

Dry weight [g]

B Parent – ACPFG & B Berger – The Plant Accelerator

• Project underway with

– Cassava, chickpea, sorghum,

sugarcane, plus several others



y = 2.366x + 1.0883 R² = 0.8315

0,0

0,1

0,2

0,3

0,4

0,5

0,6

0,7

0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8 0,9

Tota

l Ch

loro

ph

yll c

on

ten

t [m

g/g]

Relative 'dark green' area of leaves

Colour as a indicator of chlorophyll content

y = 0.2261x - 9.6447 R² = 0.8129

0,0

0,5

1,0

1,5

2,0

2,5

3,0

3,5

4,0

46 48 50 52 54 56 58

Tota

l Ch

lorp

hyl

l co

nte

nt

[mg/

g]

Mean hue of sideview images



Growth rate case study

• The real value of high-throughput, high-

resolution, non-destructive phenotyping



Growth rate analysis

Rhiannon Schilling, University of Adelaide

Use of The Plant Accelerator for high-throughput phenotyping

Documents

Transcript of Use of The Plant Accelerator for high-throughput phenotyping