Near infrared hyperspectral imaging system for root phenotyping

This paper presents the development and application of a hyper-spectral imaging system for root phenotyping. For sustainable plant production root systems optimized for growing conditions in the field are required. Therefore, the presented system is used for the research in the field of plant drought resistance. The system is used to acquire spatially resolved near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy data of rhizoboxes. In contrast to using visible light (380 nm-780 nm) the NIR wavelength range (900 nm-1700 nm) allows to discriminate essential features for the root segmentation and water distribution mappings. The increased image contrast in the NIR range allows roots to be segmented from soil and additional information, e.g. basic root-architecture, to be extracted. In addition, the water absorption bands in the NIR wavelength range can be used to determine the water content and to estimate the age of the roots. In this paper the hardware setup of the hyper-spectral root imaging system, the data analysis, the soil water content estimations and the root segmentation using different methods to optimize separation between roots and soil, both constituting complex materials of variable properties, are presented.