植物生理表型研究广泛应用于干旱、渍涝、盐碱等引起作物产量损失等领域，以色列在节水农业领域走在世界前沿，以色列科学家开发了植物高通量生理学表型监测系统，实时监控植株生长情况，并广泛应用植物表型组学研究、作物耐旱相关遗传、分子育种等科学研究等领域。

Figure1.Experimental setup.(A)View of the randomized experimental setup array consisting of 72 measuring units loaded with Capsicum annuum.(B)Block diagram of the system. Solid circles – well-irrigated plants; empty circles – plants subjected to the drought-recovery scenario. Green – ICL-SW-treated plants, orange – ICL-NewFo1-treated plants, blue – control (no biostimulants) plants. Note that all pot surfaces were covered to reduce evaporation, and irrigation was injected into the soil via multi-outlet drippers to ensure even distribution of fertigation and biostimulants (see Supplementary Figure 1). 

Dynamic Physiological Phenotyping of Drought-Stressed Pepper Plants Treated With “Productivity-Enhancing” and “Survivability-Enhancing” Biostimulants

Ahan Dalal1, Ronny Bourstein1,2, Nadav Haish1, Itamar Shenhar1, Rony Wallach2 and Menachem Moshelion1*

The improvement of crop productivity under abiotic stress is one of the biggest challenges faced by the agricultural scientific community. Despite extensive research, the research-to-commercial transfer rate of abiotic stress-resistant crops remains very low. This is mainly due to the complexity of genotype × environment interactions and in particular, the ability to quantify the dynamic plant physiological response profile to a dynamic environment. Most existing phenotyping facilities collect information using robotics and automated image acquisition and analysis. However, their ability to directly measure the physiological properties of the whole plant is limited. We demonstrate a high-throughput functional phenotyping system (HFPS) that enables comparing plants’ dynamic responses to different ambient conditions in dynamic environments due to its direct and simultaneous measurement of yield-related physiological traits of plants under several treatments. The system is designed as one-to-one (1:1) plant–[sensors+controller] units, i.e., each individual plant has its own personalized sensor, controller and irrigation valves that enable (i) monitoring water-relation kinetics of each plant–environment response throughout the plant’s life cycle with high spatiotemporal resolution, (ii) a truly randomized experimental design due to multiple independent treatment scenarios for every plant, and (iii) reduction of artificial ambient perturbations due to the immobility of the plants or other objects. In addition, we propose two new resilience-quantifying-related traits that can also be phenotyped using the HFPS: transpiration recovery rate and night water reabsorption. We use the HFPS to screen the effects of two commercial biostimulants (a seaweed extract –ICL-SW, and a metabolite formula – ICL-NewFo1) on Capsicum annuum under different irrigation regimes. Biostimulants are considered an alternative approach to improving crop productivity. However, their complex mode of action necessitates cost-effective pre-field phenotyping. The combination of two types of treatment (biostimulants and drought) enabled us to evaluate the precision and resolution of the system in investigating the effect of biostimulants on drought tolerance. We analyze and discuss plant behavior at different stages, and assess the penalty and trade-off between productivity and resilience. In this test case, we suggest a protocol for the screening of biostimulants’ physiological mechanisms of action. 

Dynamic Physiological Phenotyping of Drought-Stressed Pepper Plants Treated With “Productivity-Enhancing” and “Survivability-Enhancing” Biostimulants

Dalal et. al. (2019) Front. Plant Sci. DOI:10.3389/fpls.2019.00905