The drought stress experiment with the four UNTWIST focus lines at the flowering stage, carried out by AIT at the novel high-throughput phenotyping platform PHENOPlant in Vienna.
Based on a combined evaluation of the genetic diversity and field and glasshouse trials of the 54 UNTWIST core collection lines, four camelina focus lines were selected for a systems-based analyses of camelina´s plasticity. These focus lines are now being studied in three stress experiments conducted at different locations: heat stress in controlled glasshouse chambers at RRes (United Kingdom), drought stress in semi-controlled lysimeters at UNIBO (Italy), and drought stress under controlled conditions in a high-throughput phenotyping facility by AIT (Austria).
AIT performed the experiment under control and water-limiting conditions with 800 camelina plants of the focus lines at the novel phenotyping platform PHENOPlant at the Vienna BioCenter Core Facilities. PHENOPlant is an automated conveyor-based system which moves plants in special trays under fully controlled growth conditions between a cultivation chamber, a phenotyping station with multiple cameras and sensors, and a station for precision watering of individual pots. Hence, this setup allowed for maintaining the soil water contents of control and drought-stressed plants at defined levels. The camelina plants were phenotyped daily during the experimental phase with the full set of imaging systems comprising PAM chlorophyll fluorescence, RGB (top and side-view), 3D scanning, thermal and hyperspectral imaging. These different imaging approaches facilitates studying deep physiological responses of camelina to drought stress over time. In combination with data from destructive analyses of leaf and silique samples taken from the plants at different time-points after stress imposition, the information derived from the non-invasive phenotyping will enrich the basis for the UNTWIST modeling approaches. The gained physiological understanding will also contribute to the identification of tolerance mechanisms of camelina to drought stress.
Besides the scientific advancement, the experiment has resulted in a nice video showing what a camelina plant experiences on its way through the PHENOPlant facility, starting at the cultivation chamber, sequentially passing through the different imaging systems, followed by the weighing and watering station before returning to the cultivation chamber.
Focus lines
Photo credit: AIT
