Plant functional genomics

The key application area of the LemnaTec Scanalyzer 3D system is the fast developing domain of plant functional genomics – for the understanding of plants and the development of better plant models in systems biology or breeding programmes. Large plant numbers, from small Arabidopsis seedlings in trays to field crops in 40 kg pots, can be assessed swiftly and efficiently by taking 1000 or more assessments each day.

Depending on the degree of automatisation, plants are manually placed in the Scanalyzer 3D (or in some cases in the Scanalyzer PL or HTS for small plants in trays) or transported on conveyor belts directly from the greenhouses to the imaging chambers. Such chambers provide top and side imaging of both shoot and root systems. Application of different camera and acquisition modes – from visual light to near infrared (NIR/SWIR), infrared (IR) and fluorescence imaging – opens new perspectives for visualisation and non-destructive quantification.

LemnaTec helps researchers to transform their plant phenotyping needs into the appropriate technical projects for their specific aims. Besides the imaging hardware, this includes image analysis, using the powerful LemnaGrid tool, as well as data transformation and mining with the LemnaMiner. LemnaTec is also able to provide the necessary server infrastructure and implement the respective interfaces with the LemnaBase database integrated in the customer’s infrastructure.

Thus LemnaTec enables full integration of plant and data infrastructure, which may even include watering and weighing systems for plant maintenance, programmed drought stress research, salinity studies or spraying cabins to keep the plants healthy.

Plant phenotyping centers already successfully working with the LemnaTec Scanalyzer 3D systems as their core technology are located or planned in many agriculturally important regions such as the USA, Germany, Australia, Italy, France, the Netherlands and the UK. In research location the systems have been customised to the needs of local or national crop production plants.