Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 9, 2025
A Telemetric, Gravimetric Platform for Real-Time Physiological Phenotyping of Plant–Environment Interactions
Published on: August 5, 2020
Physiological phenotyping of transpiration response to vapour pressure deficit in wheat
Anna Moritz1, Andreas Eckert2, Stjepan Vukasovic2
1Department of Plant Breeding, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany. anna.l.moritz@agrar.uni-giessen.de.
Background:
Precision phenotyping of short-term transpiration response to environmental conditions and transpiration patterns throughout wheat development enables a better understanding of specific trait compositions that lead to improved transpiration efficiency. Transpiration and related traits were evaluated in a set of 79 winter wheat lines using the custom-built "DroughtSpotter XXL" facility. The 120 l plant growth containers implemented in this phenotyping platform enable gravimetric quantification of water use in real-time under semi-controlled, yet field-like conditions across the entire crop life cycle.
Results:
The resulting high-resolution data enabled identification of significant developmental stage-specific variation for genotype rankings in transpiration efficiency. In addition, for all examined genotypes we identified the genotype-specific breakpoint in transpiration in response to increasing vapour pressure deficit, with breakpoints ranging between 2.75 and 4.1 kPa.
Conclusion:
Continuous monitoring of transpiration efficiency and diurnal transpiration patterns enables identification of hidden, heritable genotypic variation for transpiration traits relevant for wheat under drought stress. Since the unique experimental setup mimics field-like growth conditions, the results of this study have good transferability to field conditions.
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02:03Xylem and Transpiration-driven Transport of Resources
01:10Transcription
Transcription is the process of synthesizing RNA from a DNA sequence by RNA polymerase. It is the first step in producing a protein from a gene sequence. Additionally, many other proteins and regulatory sequences are involved in the proper synthesis of messenger RNA (mRNA). Regulation of transcription is responsible for the differentiation of all the different types of cells and often for the proper cellular response to environmental signals.
Transcription Can Produce Different Kinds...