High-throughput imaging tools to phenotype traits in plants for stress environments

Abstract

Despite the rapid development of plant genomic technologies, a lack of advancement in high-throughput image based plant phenotyping capabilities limits our ability to dissect the genetics of quantitative traits. Effective, high-throughput image based phenotyping platforms have recently been developed to solve this problem. In high-throughput phenotyping platforms, a variety of imaging methodologies are being used to collect data for quantitative studies of complex traits related to the growth, yield and adaptation to biotic or abiotic stress (drought, disease, insects, and salinity). These imaging techniques include visible (RGB) imaging, spectroscopy imaging (multispectral and hyperspectral remote sensing), thermal infrared imaging, fluorescence imaging. This paper presents a brief review on these imaging techniques and their applications in plant phenotyping. The features used to apply these imaging techniques to plant phenotyping for abiotic stresses are described and discussed in this review.