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Plant phenotyping platform

Area: plant physiology, agricultural genetics, agricultural engineering

The PhenoPlant platform is an advanced phenotyping system that enables the automated detection of morphological, structural and functional traits in plants. This automated platform is intended to complement the Department research equipment, to support the scientific training of students, PhD students and researchers, and to attract new national and international collaborations.

The PhenoPlant platform, consisting of 216 stations (for potted plants), ensures the continuous measurement of plant weight, its irrigation according to deficiency/restitution protocols, as well as the control of illumination, temperature and humidity. It allows the automated detection of morphological, structural and functional plant traits through the analysis of multispectral images emitted by the plants and continuously scanned by a gantry system. By integrating the multispectral outputs, the system provides the automated measurement of plant growth and fitness parameters, as well as the survey of environmental parameters.

The PhenoPlant platform acts simultaneous and accurate measures in order to study the correlations between phenotypic expression, growth performance, induced experimental treatments, environmental and genetic parameters. Understanding the processes that regulate adaptation strategies to the environment and cultivation techniques is essential for the advancement of basic science and for multiple agronomic and technological implications.

  • PlantEye Fieldscales from Phenospex, a plant phenotyping platform consisting of two 3D multispectral PlantEye F500 DualScan laser scanners and 216 DroughtSpotter scales for the simultaneous and automated detection of morphological characters and growth indices of 216 pot plants
  • CIRAS-4 from PP system, portable IRGA (infrared gas analyzer) gas exchange analysis and plant fluorescence.

The PhenoPlant Platform management laboratory handles all phases of experimentation:

  • Setting up the experiment
  • Scanning of pot plants
  • Calculation of growth parameters and vegetative indices
  • Control and continuous monitoring of environmental parameters
  • Results and data pre-processing

The platform offers the possibility of calculating the following parameters and vegetative indices:

  • Average and maximum plant height
  • Leaf area
  • Digital biomass
  • Leaf inclination angle
  • Light penetration depth of the vegetation cover
  • Total volume
  • Canopy circumference and area
  • Canopy coverage, maximum width and size ratio
  • Leaf colour hue, brightness and saturation
  • NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index)
  • NPCI (Normalized Pigment Chlorophyll ratio Index)
  • PSRI (Plant Senescence Reflectance Index)
  • GLI (Green Leaf Index)
  • Kinetics related to pot weight and irrigation

The greenhouse housing the Phenoplant platform is also equipped with a LED lamp lighting system capable of integrating sunlight in order to achieve the optimal light conditions for plant growth. The lamps, which can be dimmed and controlled remotely, make it possible to optimize the management of experiments inside the greenhouse.

In order to achieve a high level of environmental sustainability of this platform, the greenhouse housing Phenoplant is heated during the winter months with a heat pump heating system, associated with 7 geothermal probes located near the greenhouse.

The laboratory is accessible only on request accompanied by authorised staff.
Fees and access methods are defined according to specific requests.

Last update: 08/09/2023 12:38
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