Monitoring Drought Stress in Common Bean Using Chlorophyll Fluorescence and Multispectral Imaging

Tomislav Javornik; Klaudija Carović-Stanko; Jerko Gunjača; Monika Vidak; Boris Lazarević

doi:10.3390/plants12061386

Monitoring Drought Stress in Common Bean Using Chlorophyll Fluorescence and Multispectral Imaging

Plants (Basel). 2023 Mar 21;12(6):1386. doi: 10.3390/plants12061386.

Authors

Tomislav Javornik^{1

2}, Klaudija Carović-Stanko^{1

2}, Jerko Gunjača^{1

3}, Monika Vidak^{1

2}, Boris Lazarević^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Centre of Excellence for Biodiversity and Molecular Plant Breeding (CoE CroP-BioDiv), Svetošimunska cesta 25, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
² Department of Seed Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb, Svetošimunska cesta 25, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
³ Department of Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biometrics, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb, Svetošimunska cesta 25, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
⁴ Department of Plant Nutrition, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb, Svetošimunska cesta 25, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.

Abstract

Drought is a significant constraint in bean production. In this study, we used high-throughput phenotyping methods (chlorophyll fluorescence imaging, multispectral imaging, 3D multispectral scanning) to monitor the development of drought-induced morphological and physiological symptoms at an early stage of development of the common bean. This study aimed to select the plant phenotypic traits which were most sensitive to drought. Plants were grown in an irrigated control (C) and under three drought treatments: D70, D50, and D30 (irrigated with 70, 50, and 30 mL distilled water, respectively). Measurements were performed on five consecutive days, starting on the first day after the onset of treatments (1 DAT-5 DAT), with an additional measurement taken on the eighth day (8 DAT) after the onset of treatments. Earliest detected changes were found at 3 DAT when compared to the control. D30 caused a decrease in leaf area index (of 40%), total leaf area (28%), reflectance in specific green (13%), saturation (9%), and green leaf index (9%), and an increase in the anthocyanin index (23%) and reflectance in blue (7%). The selected phenotypic traits could be used to monitor drought stress and to screen for tolerant genotypes in breeding programs.

Keywords: high-throughput phenotyping; morphological changes; spectral reflectance; vegetation indices.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the project KK.01.1.1.01.0005 Biodiversity and Molecular Plant Breeding, at the Centre of Excellence for Biodiversity and Molecular Plant Breeding (CoE CroP-BioDiv), Zagreb, Croatia. This work was also supported by the Croatian Science Foundation within the “Young Researchers’ Career Development Project—Training New Doctoral Students”.