PJB-2022-451
IMAGE-BASED HIGH THROUGHPUT PHENOTYPING REVEALS VARIATION IN ROOT SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE TRAITS OF SOYBEAN
Haris Khurshid
Abstract
Soybean is a widely cultivated commercial crop mainly grown for its edible oil and protein content. Climate change and abiotic stresses are currently posing productivity and adaptation challenges to the crop. Root system architecture traits can open up new avenues for ideotype development in order to reduce yield losses via efficient nutrient-water uptake. We applied semi-automated image-based root phenotyping to investigate diversity in root system architecture features among seventy soybean genotypes. Root system architecture traits such as stem diameter (StemD), projected root area (Area), root system width (RootSysW), number of root tips (RootTips), number of adventitious roots (AdventRoot), number of basal roots (BasalRoot), tap root (TAPRD), total root length (TLength), total root volume (Tvolume) and number of branching points (BranchingP) were evaluated after 28 DAS using a recently developed computer-based Digital Imaging of Root Traits (DIRT) and Semi-automated Root Image Analysis (saRIA) applications. The data generated by softwares were analyzed for descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation and principal component analysis (PCA). Relatively higher variability was observed in traits i.e. BasalRoot (CV= 55.82%), BranchingP (CV= 44.51%), RootTips (CV= 37.8%), Area (36.73%) and RootSysW (35.02%). However, TAPRD and StemD exhibited low variation and had CV% of 7.64 and 18.22, respectively. All the studied traits were found to be strongly associated with each other whereas selection for one trait will lead to positive or negative selection of other trait(s). First two PCs represented 64.9% and 14.9% variability, respectively. Broadly, the classification of genotypes was manifested by root agro-morphological traits rather than geographic origin. The availability of variation in these traits provide opportunity to develop high yielding stable cultivars in response to yield limiting abiotic stresses like drought, flooding, inefficient nutrient uptake and drastic edaphic conditions.
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