Development of a mobile, high-throughput, and low-cost plant growth
phenotyping system
Abstract
Plant growth is the product of gene by environment (GxE) interactions
during plant development. Effective characterization of plant growth
under various conditions provides insight into genetic components of
plant development and mechanisms of stress resilience. While the
emergence of high-through phenotyping facilities provides new avenues to
further understand plant development and stress responses, the large
costs of such facilities are hindering the study of dynamic growth
processes. To democratize high-throughput plant phenotyping, we
developed three sets of image-based phenotyping devices utilizing
Raspberry Pi computers and low-weight/low-cost materials to continuously
monitor shoot and root growth. The process is further automated by our
workflows including data collection and statistical analysis. Our
devices and workflows are customizable to image a wide variety of plants
and tissues. To validate our system, we measured growth of Arabidopsis
rosettes, tomato roots, and characterized the relationship between
cowpea growth and evapotranspiration. These results demonstrate the
variety of applications for Raspberry Pi based phenotyping. Importantly,
this low-cost system is ideal for studying the genetics of plant growth
and identifying new components of abiotic stress tolerance in a wide
variety of species.