The iCORE Center for Functional Phenotyping of Whole-Plant Responses to Environmental Stresses
This new greenhouse is specially designed to allow researchers to screen hundreds of plants simultaneously, under a variety of controlled conditions (e.g., water availability, nutrient levels, specific chemicals, etc.), while continually monitoring several physiological parameters (see below) for each individual plant.
The unique irrigation system controls each plant’s exposure to inputs and can be used to create a range of degrees of severity of stress conditions for different periods during the plant life cycle, from germination through flowering and fruit setting.
The system allows simultaneous soil–plant–atmosphere measurements of all plants in the array in an easy-to-use, non-destructive and non-invasive manner, allowing for the genuine comparison of different plants and treatments.
System Output:
- Daily Biomass Gain
- Daily Water Loss
- Water-Use Efficiency
- Transpiration Rate
- Stomatal Conductance
- Root Water Flux
- Relative Water Content and
- Individual Stress Index (DRI).
The above physiological traits are taken for the whole plant
(for more details see:
http://www.plant-ditech.com/)
