PhenoImage: An open-source graphical user interface for plant image analysis

Authors

Feiyu Zhu, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Manny Saluja, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Jaspinder Singh, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Puneet Paul, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Scott E. Sattler, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Paul Staswick, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Harkamal Walia, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Hongfeng Yu, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

ORCID IDs

Puneet Paul https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8220-8021

Paul Staswick https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2798-0275

HarkamalWalia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9712-5824

Hongfeng Yu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0596-8227

Date of this Version

2021

Citation

The Plant Phenome J. 2021;4:e20015.

https://doi.org/10.1002/ppj2.20015

Comments

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License

Abstract

High-throughput genotyping coupled with molecular breeding approaches have dramatically accelerated crop improvement programs. More recently, improved plant phenotyping methods have led to a shift from manual measurements to automated platforms with increased scalability and resolution. Considerable effort has also gone into developing large-scale downstream processing of the imaging datasets derived from high-throughput phenotyping (HTP) platforms. However, most available tools require some programming skills.We developed PhenoImage, an open-source graphical user interface (GUI) based cross-platform solution for HTP image processing intending to make image analysis accessible to users with either little or no programming skills. The open-source nature provides the possibility to extend its usability to meet user-specific requirements. The availability of multiple functions and filtering parameters provides flexibility to analyze images from a wide variety of plant species and platforms. PhenoImage can be run on a personal computer as well as on high-performance computing clusters. To test the efficacy of the application, we analyzed the LemnaTec Imaging system derived red, green, and blue (RGB) color intensity and plant pigmentation-based fluorescence shoot images from two plant species: sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) differing in their physical attributes. In the study, we discuss the development, implementation, and working of the PhenoImage.