The two NaPPI facilities were made available for UH ViPS PIs to bring in plants for imaging. Limited time series of imaging of plants with or without (pre)treatments were organized. NaPPI personnel provided guidance and materials for the experiment, programmed the plant management and imaging events, and assisted in curating the imaging data. The users obtained both image data from 1-to-3 sensors as well as the numeric data of plant size, morphology and physiological status at the chosen time points.
To evaluate morphological and physiological plant phenotypes non-invasively over the course of time, multiple visible light RGBs, a thermal imaging set-up and two chlorophyll fluorescence imaging units (Imaging PAMs) were utilized. The UH installation has features for small plants (Compact system) as well as for large plant (Modular system) analysis. LED illumination is adjustable with smooth spectrum for given day length and light intensities, and plants can be light- or dark adapted in acclimation tunnels. These approaches allow measuring many structural and physiological parameters of samples from tiny Arabidopsis seedlings to large crops of over one-meter height. The high throughput facilities, with automated plant management (movement, weighing, watering), for large plants are in a greenhouse with environmental monitoring (relative humidity, temperature, light sensitivity and spectral quality) and for small plants in a controlled walk-in chamber. Analyzed plants till now include but are not limited to; Arabidopsis, herbs, berries, lettuce, potato, sweet potato, oil-seed Brassica, wheat, oat, spruce, birch and pine.
Altogether 7 UH ViPS PIs proposed Brave New Initiative project ideas and altogher 10 experiments were performed during the access.