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Assessing plant performance in the Enviratron
- Source :
- Plant Methods, Vol 15, Iss 1, Pp 1-14 (2019), Plant Methods
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2019.
-
Abstract
- Background Assessing the impact of the environment on plant performance requires growing plants under controlled environmental conditions. Plant phenotypes are a product of genotype × environment (G × E), and the Enviratron at Iowa State University is a facility for testing under controlled conditions the effects of the environment on plant growth and development. Crop plants (including maize) can be grown to maturity in the Enviratron, and the performance of plants under different environmental conditions can be monitored 24 h per day, 7 days per week throughout the growth cycle. Results The Enviratron is an array of custom-designed plant growth chambers that simulate different environmental conditions coupled with precise sensor-based phenotypic measurements carried out by a robotic rover. The rover has workflow instructions to periodically visit plants growing in the different chambers where it measures various growth and physiological parameters. The rover consists of an unmanned ground vehicle, an industrial robotic arm and an array of sensors including RGB, visible and near infrared (VNIR) hyperspectral, thermal, and time-of-flight (ToF) cameras, laser profilometer and pulse-amplitude modulated (PAM) fluorometer. The sensors are autonomously positioned for detecting leaves in the plant canopy, collecting various physiological measurements based on computer vision algorithms and planning motion via “eye-in-hand” movement control of the robotic arm. In particular, the automated leaf probing function that allows the precise placement of sensor probes on leaf surfaces presents a unique advantage of the Enviratron system over other types of plant phenotyping systems. Conclusions The Enviratron offers a new level of control over plant growth parameters and optimizes positioning and timing of sensor-based phenotypic measurements. Plant phenotypes in the Enviratron are measured in situ—in that the rover takes sensors to the plants rather than moving plants to the sensors.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
0301 basic medicine
Plant growth
Growth chambers
Hyperspectral imaging
Unmanned ground vehicle
Robot
Plant Science
Environment
lcsh:Plant culture
01 natural sciences
03 medical and health sciences
Crop plants
Fluorometer
Genetics
Climate change
lcsh:SB1-1110
lcsh:QH301-705.5
Movement control
Remote sensing
Research
VNIR
030104 developmental biology
lcsh:Biology (General)
PAM-fluorometry
Environmental science
Robotic arm
010606 plant biology & botany
Biotechnology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 17464811
- Volume :
- 15
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Plant Methods
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....419e2f33255ca503b54108987b66e551