An advanced three-dimensional phenotypic measurement approach for extracting root structural parameters based on terrestrial laser scanning.

The phenotyping of plant roots is essential for improving plant productivity and adaptation. However, traditional techniques for assembling root phenotyping information are limited and often labor-intensive, especially for woody plants. In this study, an advanced approach called accurate and detailed quantitative structure model-based (AdQSM-based) root phenotypic measurement (ARPM) was developed to automatically extract phenotypes from tree root systems. The approach involves three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of the point cloud obtained from terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) to extract key phenotypic parameters, including root diameter (RD), length, surface area, and volume. To evaluate the proposed method, two approaches [minimum spanning tree (MST)-based and triangulated irregular network (TIN)-based] were used to reconstruct the root systems from point clouds, and the number of lateral roots along with RD were extracted and compared with traditional methods. The results indicated that the RD extracted directly from point clouds [coefficient of determination ( ) = 0.99, root-mean-square error (RMSE) = 0.41 cm] outperformed the results of 3D models (MST-based:  = 0.71, RMSE = 2.20 cm; TIN-based:  = 0.54, RMSE = 2.80 cm). Additionally, the MST-based model (F1 = 0.81) outperformed the TIN-based model (F1 = 0.80) in detecting the number of first-order and second-order lateral roots. Each phenotyping trait fluctuated with a different cloud parameter (CP), and the CP value of 0.002 ( = 0.94, < 0.01) was found to be advantageous for better extraction of structural phenotypes. This study has helped with the extraction and quantitative analysis of root phenotypes and enhanced our understanding of the relationship between architectural parameters and corresponding physiological functions of tree roots.