Non-invasive quantification of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) plant biomass through digital imaging using phenomics platform.

Abstract

Phenotyping approaches, using high throughput imaging techniques, are being adopted over the traditional methodologies which are manpower intensive, time consuming and low throughput. However, the effectiveness of high throughput plant phenotyping through imaging in plant phenomics facility essentially requires establishing relationship between plant areas quantified through imaging and the actual biomass. The present study was conducted with an aim to standardise the methodology for digital quantification of tomato biomass using plant phenomics facility. A strong linear relationship was observed between the actual tomato plant fresh mass, digital biomass and projected shoot area. The correlations between plant fresh mass, plant digital biomass and projected shoot area were highly significant at 30, 45 and 60 days after transplanting, but at 75 days no correlation was observed.Hence, the present study clearly demonstrated that the growth of tomato plants could be monitored through digital imaging using either projected shoot area or digital biomass till 60 days after transplanting across genotypes for high throughput phenotyping.