Identification for surrogate drought tolerance in maize inbred lines utilizing high-throughput phenomics approach

Area of Science:

• Plant science
• Agricultural science
• Genomics

Background:

• Drought tolerance is crucial for maize crop improvement.
• Genomic efforts require complementary large-scale phenotyping.
• Phenomics offers non-destructive, high-throughput screening methods.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate phenomic techniques for screening drought tolerance in maize.
• To identify surrogate traits associated with drought resilience.
• To explore the relationship between canopy temperature and biomass under stress.

Main Methods:

• Utilized automated imaging systems (LemnaTec Scanalyzer) for VIS, NIR, and thermal imaging.
• Captured top and side views of 30 maize inbred lines over 11 days.
• Processed images for feature extraction, estimating traits like pixel area and aspect ratio.

Main Results:

• Established a strong association between canopy temperature and above-ground biomass under drought stress.
• Identified several surrogate traits for phenomic analysis.
• Demonstrated the utility of phenomics in capturing drought-related plant responses.

Conclusions:

• Phenomics is a valuable tool for large-scale screening of drought tolerance in maize.
• Canopy temperature can serve as a key indicator for biomass under stress.
• Findings will inform breeding programs for developing drought-resilient maize varieties.