X-Ray Computed Tomography of Crop Plant Root Systems Grown in Soil

Abstract

Non-destructive methods to quantify the root system architecture of a plant grown in soil are essential to aid our understanding of the factors that impact plant root development in natural environments. With environmental change threatening our ability to sustain agricultural productivity for an expanding global population, the application of these methods has never before seen such an increase in demand. X-ray computed tomography (CT) based phenotyping techniques permit the spatio-temporal quantification of roots, helping to identify novel adaptive root architectural responses to abiotic and biotic factors. This protocol reports an integrated workflow from column preparation and plant growth to image and quantification of the root system using novel open source software applications, RooTrak and RooTh. © 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.