Author Spotlight: Unraveling Plant Responses to Abiotic Stresses Using the PlantScreen Robotic Platform

So here in PSI, we use PlantScreen phenotyping systems, which are robotic type of solutions for high-throughput plant phenotyping, and these systems are based on using a range of modules, modules both for plant cultivation and handling, like automated watering and weighing units, as well as modules for automated digital-based imaging of the plants, and this both for structural morphological features of the plants as well as physiological traits of the plants. The advantage of the applied protocol in this study is that we are using the multiple imaging sensor, including the plant growth dynamics that we measure by using the RGP imaging and connect this with the other physiological responses, including the photosynthetic efficiency from chlorophyll fluorescence imaging, assessing the stomatal regulation from the canopy temperature by the measuring of the thermal imaging, and also the leaf reflectance indices that we measure by using the hyperspectral imaging. Our findings focuses on highlighting how to elucidate the response of plants when they are induced to combined stress versus their individual stress, and be able to assess the early and late response to stresses and recovery phase afterwards, and highlighting the necessity of using multiple imaging sensor for integrative and better understanding of plant underlying mechanism to future climate change conditions.