Building on extensive expertise and experience in biology and physics, CD BioSciences strives to develop a high-throughput plant physiology research platform to provide real-time analysis of plant physiological characteristics for our clients. Our state-of-the-art technology platform will accelerate the progress of clients' projects in the field of plant root growth.

Introduction

Root morphological traits are important for maximizing water and mineral uptake. As plants growing in the natural environment are subject to a variety of factors, plant roots often modify their nutrient acquisition capacity by adapting their morphological and/or physiological characteristics to meet changes in shoot nutrient requirements in response to environmental stresses. Drought is one of the most common factors that threaten healthy plant growth and development. Understanding the physiological traits of roots associated with drought tolerance is important for further understanding the drought tolerance mechanisms of the whole plant.

Effective water absorption is an important determinant of drought resistance and water absorption depends on the morphological and physiological characteristics of roots. Plantarray is a weighing-based, high-throughput, multi-sensor physiological phenotyping platform developed by the Hebrew University in Israel. It has been widely used as a global research method for plant root research. Monitoring and collecting parameters of plant physiological activity can accelerate research into plant growth mechanisms and provide useful information for crop improvement and the discovery of tolerant plants.

Fig.1 Changes of suberin lamellae in O. taihangensis roots response to drought stress. (Yang, 2020)

Our Services

The role of roots in water absorption is very important. However, as roots are located underground it is very challenging to monitor them continuously. We are committed to establishing a high-throughput plant physiology research platform to help clients quantitatively evaluate multiple functional traits. We use non-destructive monitoring methods to measure and calculate the following parameters:

• Measurement of soil moisture, temperature, conductivity and other environmental signals using sensors embedded in the soil.
• Measurement of root biomass changes, stomatal conductivity, water use efficiency, nutrient use efficiency, and water flux rates.
• Measurement of drought tolerance and recovery indices of the plant root system.
• Analysis of the relative water content of the whole plant over time by measuring the soil water content of the root of each plant, combined with values for root activity.
• Measurements of root morphology and root bleeding rates.
• Quantification of root mortality.

Applications

• Study on abiotic stress response
• Study on physiological ecology
• Crop improvement

Equipped with a high-level research team and advanced instrumentation, CD BioSciences offers our clients the services of measuring plant physiological characteristics. Our established easy-to-use high-throughput plant growth assays and physiological phenotyping services will help you efficiently screen for suitable experimental plants and traits, thereby accelerating environmental stress research. Please feel free to contact us for more details if you are interested in our services.

Reference

1. Yang, Y.; et al. Root physiological traits and transcriptome analyses reveal that root zone water retention confers drought tolerance to Opisthopappus taihangensis. Scientific reports. 2020, 10(1): 1-14.

• Detection of Root Phenotype
• Geometric Characterization of Developing Lateral Roots
• Analysis of Root Growth Under Mechanical Stress
• Analysis of Plant Root Exudates
• Modeling of Root Growth
• Modeling of Root-Soil Interactions
• AFM-Based Biophysical Analysis of Root Growth