Identification of stay-green and early senescence phenotypes in high-yielding winter wheat, and their relationship to grain yield and grain protein concentration using high-throughput phenotyping techniques.

Yield and grain protein concentration (GPC) represent crucial factors in the global agricultural wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production and are predominantly determined via carbon and nitrogen metabolism, respectively. The maintenance of green leaf area and the onset of senescence (Osen) are expected to be involved in both C and N accumulation and their translocation into grains. The aim of this study was to identify stay-green and early senescence phenotypes in a field experiment of 50 certified winter wheat cultivars and to investigate the relationships among Osen, yield and GPC. Colour measurements on flag leaves were conducted to determine Osen for 20 cultivars and partial least square regression models were used to calculate Osen for the remaining 30 cultivars based on passive spectral reflectance measurements as a high-throughput phenotyping technique for all varieties. Using this method, stay-green and early senescence phenotypes could be clearly differentiated. A significant negative relationship between Osen and grain yield (r2=0.81) was observed. By contrast, GPC showed a significant positive relationship to Osen (r2=0.48). In conclusion, the high-throughput character of our proposed phenotyping method should help improve the detection of such traits in large field trials as well as help us reach a better understanding of the consequences of the timing of senescence on yield.

Development of a diurnal dehydration index for spring barley phenotyping.

Spectral and thermal assessments may enable the precise, high-throughput and low-cost characterisation of traits linked to drought tolerance. However, spectral and thermal measurements of the canopy water status are influenced by the crops' soil coverage, the size of the biomass and other properties such as the leaf angle distribution. The aim of this study was to develop a referenced spectral method that would be minimally influenced by potentially perturbing factors for retrieving the water status of differing cultivars. Sixteen spring barley cultivars were grown in field trials under imposed drought stress, natural drought stress and irrigated conditions. The relative leaf water content of barley plants declines diurnally from pre-dawn until the afternoon, and other plant traits such as the biomass change little throughout the day. As an indicator of the current drought stress, pre-dawn and afternoon values of the relative leaf water content were assessed spectrally. Diurnal changes in reflectance are only slightly influenced by other perturbing factors. A new spectral index (diurnal dehydration index) was developed by using the wavelengths 730 and 457nm collected from an active spectrometer. This index allowed the differentiation of the drought tolerance of barley plants. The diurnal dehydration index was significantly related to final biomass, grain yield and harvest index and significantly different between cultivars. Compared with other indices, the diurnal dehydration index offered a higher stability in retrieving the water status of barley plants. Due to its diurnal assessment, the index was barely influenced by the differences in cultivars biomass at the time of measurement. It may represent a valuable tool for assessing the water status or drought tolerance in breeding nurseries.

Spectral assessments of wheat plants grown in pots and containers under saline conditions.

Spectral measurements allow fast nondestructive assessment of plant traits under controlled greenhouse and close-to-field conditions. Field crop stands differ from pot-grown plants, which may affect the ability to assess stress-related traits by nondestructive high-throughput measurements. This study analysed the potential to detect salt stress-related traits of spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars grown in pots or in a close-to-field container platform. In two experiments, selected spectral indices assessed by active and passive spectral sensing were related to the fresh weight of the aboveground biomass, the water content of the aboveground biomass, the leaf water potential and the relative leaf water content of two cultivars with different salt tolerance. The traits were better ascertained by spectral sensing of container-grown plants compared with pot-grown plants. This may be due to a decreased match between the sensors' footprint and the plant area of the pot-grown plants, which was further characterised by enhanced senescence of lower leaves. The reflectance ratio R760 : R670, the normalised difference vegetation index and the reflectance ratio R780 : R550 spectral indices were the best indices and were significantly related to the fresh weight, the water content of the aboveground biomass and the water potential of the youngest fully developed leaf. Passive sensors delivered similar relationships to active sensors. Across all treatments, both cultivars were successfully differentiated using either destructively or nondestructively assessed parameters. Although spectral sensors provide fast and qualitatively good assessments of the traits of salt-stressed plants, further research is required to describe the potential and limitations of spectral sensing.

Can changes in leaf water potential be assessed spectrally?

Leaf water potential (LWP) is an important indicator of plant water status. However, its determination via classical pressure-chamber measurements is tedious and time-consuming. Moreover, such methods cannot easily account for rapid changes in this parameter arising from changes in environmental conditions. Spectrometric measurements, by contrast, have the potential for fast and non-destructive measurements of plant water status, but are not unproblematic. Spectral characteristics of plants vary across plant development stages and are also influenced by environmental factors. Thus, it remains unclear whether changes in leaf water potential per se can reliably be detected spectrometrically or whether such measurements also reflect autocorrelated changes in the leaf water content (LWC) or the aerial plant biomass. We tested the accuracy of spectrometric measurements in this context under controlled climate chamber conditions in series of six experiments that minimised perturbing influences but allowed for significant changes in the LWP. Short-term exposure of dense stands of plants to increasing or decreasing artificial light intensities in a growth chamber more markedly decreased LWP than LWC in both wheat and maize. Significant relationships (R2-values 0.74-0.92) between LWP and new spectral indices ((R940/R960)/NDVI; R940/R960) were detected with or without significant changes in LWC of both crop species. The exact relationships found, however, were influenced strongly by the date of measurement or water stress induced. Thus, global spectral relationships measuring LWP probably cannot be established across plant development stages. Even so, spectrometric measurements supplemented by a reduced calibration dataset from pressure chamber measurements might still prove to be a fast and accurate method for screening large numbers of diverse lines.