Root gravitropism: quantification, challenges, and solutions

Better understanding of root traits such as root angle and root gravitropism will be crucial for development of crops with improved resource use efficiency. This paper describes a high-throughput, automated image analysis method to trace Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) seedling roots grown on agar plates. The method combines a ‘particle-filtering algorithm with a graph-based method’ to trace the centre line of a root and can be adopted for the analysis of several root parameters such as length, curvature, and stimulus from original root traces