Rhizosphere, Root Imaging at University of Copenhagen
What is rhizosphere and root imaging?
It is the area of the soil where all unique microorganisms, known as the root microbiome, are inhabiting. The rhizosphere contains endorhizosphere, rhizoplane and endohizosphere.
Those organisms have a large influence on the health and growth of surrounding plants, hence study and analysis of them is important.
RadiMax at University of Copenhagen – Rhizosphere
Since June 2016 the University of Copenhagen has had the RadiMax facility in operation for root phenotyping.
The RadiMax facility consists of 4 individual pits of 400 m2 area each with moveable rainout shelters, a sophisticated under-watering-system and 150 fixedinstalled rhizotrons per pit for semi-automated multicamera systems allowing root studies of up to 150 different lines at a time down to 3 m depth.
University of Copenhagen phenotyping platform pamphlet
Furthermore, three of the four platforms (all except the drones) contain Videometer spectral imaging technology.
Spectral imaging used in RadiMax detects live roots in all tested soils types:
- Roots in all soil types
- Very young roots
- Ignores roots from previous seasons
Root Imaging
Videometer MiniRhizotron is a unique imaging modality for roots. Roots are counted and characterized in various soil types. This allows to learn more about plant’s growth and their health, as well as to improve those.
The image represents PseudoRGB from a 5-spectral image ranging from UV to NIR.
References
Svane, S. F., Dam, E. B., Carstensen, J. M., & Thorup-Kristensen, K. (2019). A multispectral camera system for automated minirhizotron image analysis. Plant and Soil, 441(1–2), 657–672.
https://cropinnovation.dk/some-of-the-projects/radimax/