Open source 3D phenotyping of chickpea plant architecture across plant development.

Background: Being able to accurately assess the 3D architecture of plant canopies can allow us to better estimate plant productivity and improve our understanding of underlying plant processes. This is especially true if we can monitor these traits across plant development. Photogrammetry techniques, such as structure from motion, have been shown to provide accurate 3D reconstructions of monocot crop species such as wheat and rice, yet there has been little success reconstructing crop species with smaller leaves and more complex branching architectures, such as chickpea.

Can hydraulic design explain patterns of leaf water isotopic enrichment in C plants?

H O enrichment develops when leaves transpire, but an accurate generalized mechanistic model has proven elusive. We hypothesized that leaf hydraulic architecture may affect the degree to which gradients in H O develop within leaves, influencing bulk leaf stable oxygen isotope enrichment (Δ ) and the degree to which the Péclet effect is relevant in leaves. Leaf hydraulic design predicted the relevance of a Péclet effect to Δ in 19 of the 21 species tested.

The temperature response of mesophyll conductance, and its component conductances, varies between species and genotypes.

The temperature response of mesophyll conductance to CO diffusion (g) has been shown to vary considerably between species but remains poorly understood. Here, we tested the hypothesis that increases in chloroplast surface area with increasing temperature, due to the formation of chloroplast protrusions, caused observed positive responses of g to temperature. We found no evidence of chloroplast protrusions.

The response of mesophyll conductance to short- and long-term environmental conditions in chickpea genotypes.

. Mesophyll conductance ( ) has been shown to vary between genotypes of a number of species and with growth environments, including nitrogen availability, but understanding of variability in legumes is limited. We might expect in legumes to respond differently to limited nitrogen availability, due to their ability to fix atmospheric N.