Background Roots are vital to plant performance because they acquire resources from the soil and provide anchorage. However, it remains difficult to assess root system size and distribution because roots are inaccessible in the soil. Existing methods to phenotype entire root systems range from slow, often destructive, methods applied to relatively small numbers of plants in the field to rapid methods that can be applied to large numbers of plants in controlled environment conditions. Much has been learned recently by extensive sampling of the root crown portion of field-grown plants. But, information on large-scale genetic and environmental variation in the size and distribution of root systems in the field remains a key knowledge gap. Minirhizotrons are the only established, non-destructive technology that can address this need in a standard field trial. Prior experiments have used only modest numbers of minirhizotrons, which has limited testing to small numbers of genotypes or environmental conditions. This study addressed the need for methods to install and collect images from thousands of minirhizotrons and thereby help break the phenotyping bottleneck in the field.

中文翻译：

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安装和成像数以千计的微型根管器到田间种植植物的表型根系

背景根系对植物性能至关重要，因为它们从土壤中获取资源并提供锚定。然而，评估根系的大小和分布仍然很困难，因为根在土壤中是不可接近的。现有的对整个根系进行表型分析的方法范围从适用于田间相对少量植物的缓慢的、通常具有破坏性的方法到可应用于受控环境条件下的大量植物的快速方法。最近通过对田间种植植物的根冠部分进行广泛采样，已经了解了很多。但是，关于田间根系大小和分布的大规模遗传和环境变异的信息仍然是一个关键的知识空白。Minirhizotrons 是唯一可以在标准现场试验中满足这一需求的成熟的非破坏性技术。之前的实验只使用了适度数量的微根管，这限制了对少量基因型或环境条件的测试。这项研究解决了对安装和收集来自数千个微型根管器的图像的方法的需求，从而有助于打破该领域的表型瓶颈。