While the architecture of the root system can be complex, the anatomy of roots may be relatively simple. Roots have adapted to this by developing in a flexible 3D pattern while exploring their soil environment and interacting with it, leading to strong differences between the root systems even of plants of the same genotype ( Gregory, 2006 Eshel, 2013). Another hindrance when studying roots is that they develop naturally in a 3D soil environment with biotic and abiotic factors (such as water, nutrients, mycorrhiza, or compaction zones) much less homogenously distributed than for shoots in the airspace. Roots are also sensitive to excavation, which further hampers studying intact and functional root systems ( Gregory, 2006) as well as other belowground structures such as storage organs and their development. Nevertheless, our knowledge of the development of root structure and function is lagging behind that of the shoot mainly due to the opacity of the soil, hindering direct observation. Roots of vascular plants are specialized in mechanical anchoring and resource acquisition often combined with nutrient storage, all of which are key processes for plant performance and crop yield ( Waisel et al., 2002 Gregory, 2006). It opens new avenues to investigate belowground plant performance under adverse environmental conditions such as drought, nutrient shortage, or soil compaction to seek for traits of belowground organs making plants more resilient to stress. This demonstrates that MRI provides versatile protocols to non-invasively measure plant traits in the soil. Since knowledge of the development of internal beet structures with several concentric cambia, vascular and parenchyma rings is still limited, we consecutively acquired 3D volumetric images on individual plants using the MRI contrast parameter T 2 to map the development of rings at the tissue level. There was a clear positive correlation between the pot size and the increase in fresh weight of a sugar beet over time. Over a time period of up to 3 months, traits such as beet morphology or anatomy were followed in the soil and the effect of differently sized pots on beet fresh weight calculated from MRI data was studied. The beet consists mainly of root tissues, is rather complex regarding tissue structure and responses to environmental factors, and thereby a good object to test the applicability of MRI for 3D phenotyping approaches. We used Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as a noninvasive method to evaluate which traits can be measured when a complex plant organ is monitored in-vivo while growing in the soil. Many processes concerning the belowground plant performance are not fully understood, in particular spatial and temporal dynamics and their interrelation with environmental factors. Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, IBG-2: Plant Sciences, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germanyīoth structural and functional properties of belowground plant organs are critical for the development and yield of plants but, compared to the shoot, much more difficult to observe due to soil opacity.Ralf Metzner *, Dagmar van Dusschoten, Jonas Bühler, Ulrich Schurr and Siegfried Jahnke
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