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Bao Y, Zarecor S, Shah D, Tuel T, Campbell DA, Chapman AVE, Imberti D, Kiekhaefer D, Imberti H, Lübberstedt T, Yin Y, Nettleton D, Lawrence-Dill CJ, Whitham SA, Tang L, Howell SH. Assessing plant performance in the Enviratron. Plant Methods 2019; 15:117. [PMID: 31660060 PMCID: PMC6806530 DOI: 10.1186/s13007-019-0504-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2019] [Accepted: 10/15/2019] [Indexed: 05/05/2023]
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yin Bao
- Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
- Present Address: Department of Biosystems Engineering, Auburn University, 213 Corley Building, 350 Mell St, Auburn, AL 36830 USA
| | - Scott Zarecor
- Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
| | - Dylan Shah
- Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
- Present Address: The Faboratory, Yale University, 9 Hillhouse Ave, ML 118, New Haven, CT 06511 USA
| | - Taylor Tuel
- Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
| | - Darwin A. Campbell
- Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
| | - Antony V. E. Chapman
- Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
| | | | | | | | | | - Yanhai Yin
- Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
| | - Dan Nettleton
- Department of Statistics, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
| | - Carolyn J. Lawrence-Dill
- Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
- Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
| | - Steven A. Whitham
- Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
| | - Lie Tang
- Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
| | - Stephen H. Howell
- Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA USA
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