Quantitative phenotyping of crop roots with spectral electrical impedance tomography: a rhizotron study with optimized measurement design

Abstract Background Root systems are key contributors to plant health, resilience, and, ultimately, yield of agricultural crops. To optimize plant performance, phenotyping trials are conducted to breed plants with diverse root traits. However, traditional analysis methods are often labour-intensive and invasive to the root system, therefore limiting high-throughput phenotyping. Spectral electrical impedance tomography (sEIT) could help as a non-invasive and cost-efficient alternative to optical root analysis, potentially providing 2D or 3D spatio-temporal information on root development and activity. Although impedance measurements have been shown to be sensitive to root biomass, nutrient status, and diurnal activity, only few attempts have been made to employ tomographic algorithms to recover spatially resolved information on root systems. In this study, we aim to establish relationships between tomographic electrical polarization signatures and root traits of different fine root systems (maize, pinto bean, black bean, and soy bean) under hydroponic conditions. Results Our results show that, with the use of an optimized data acquisition scheme, sEIT is capable of providing spatially resolved information on root biomass and root surface area for all investigated root systems. We found strong correlations between the total polarization strength and the root biomass ( $$R^2 = 0.82$$ R 2 = 0.82 ) and root surface area ( $$R^2 = 0.8$$ R 2 = 0.8 ). Our findings suggest that the captured polarization signature is dominated by cell-scale polarization processes. Additionally, we demonstrate that the resolution characteristics of the measurement scheme can have a significant impact on the tomographic reconstruction of root traits. Conclusion Our findings showcase that sEIT is a promising tool for the tomographic reconstruction of root traits in high-throughput root phenotyping trials and should be evaluated as a substitute for traditional, often time-consuming, root characterization methods.