Plant Sciences
Take your plant research to the next level!
ENVIRONMENT - PHENOTYPE - DATA
The Plant Sciences Facility (PlantS) operates 23 high quality and highly specialized plant growth chambers (phytotrons) and provides professional support to the outstanding “green research” at the Vienna BioCenter (VBC) and beyond.
The focus of the services provided is on environmental simulation, high-throughput (HT) plant phenotyping and subsequent image- and data analysis.
In 2017, PlantS initiated the Austrian Plant Phenotyping Network (APPN) with the goal to unite the Austrian plant phenotyping community and to support the ESFRI-EMPHASIS project.
Contact us or visit our Info Hub
High-throughput plant phenotyping
For objective, reproducible and high-throughput assessment of plant phenotypic traits we operate numerous phenotyping instruments for Arabidopsis and crop plants; shoot and root systems (see EQUIPMENT).
For the subsequent image analysis, we use classical image analysis approaches but also state-of-the-art deep learning pipelines. We offer a complete HT phenotyping service: from seeds to data analysis, statistics and data visualization.
Multi-sensor, high-throughput plant phenotyping platform - PHENOPlant
PHENOPlant is designed for non-invasive, morphometric and physiological hight-throughput plant phenotyping of mid-size crop plants as well as Arabidopsis and will be fully integrated into a state-of-the-art walk-in phytotron providing highly homogeneous plant growth conditions.
Furthermore, the platform facilitates precise environmental (live) simulations across different climate zones as well as controlled plant stress experiments. Cutting-edge sensors include multi-excitation PAM kinetic chlorophyll fluorescence, RGB, VNIR/SWIR hyperspectral, thermal and 3D.
Within the planned infrastructure, plants are transported on conveyor belts from the growth area to the imaging cabinets equipped with state-of-the-art sensors. The imaging units are physically seperated from the growth area (two individually controlled phytotrons) facilitating the parallelization of measurements via a sample loop and thus improving the throughput, flexibility and sensor utilization.
PHENOPlant 360° video from the point of view of a plant
Environmental simulation
Several phytotrons are capable of providing exceptional environmental conditions, allowing precise environmental simulation across different climate zones and various abiotic stress conditions.
Simulated Environments:
- Cold stress (≥ -15°C) & heat stress (≤ +50°C)
- Water stress (drought & partial waterlogging)
- Variable light intensity & spectrum (LED-light: blue_405nm, blue_450nm, warm_white & red_660_730nm) incl. spectral simulation of sunrise and sunset
- CO2 level regulation
Custom Phenotyping and HT Image Analysis
The facility offers semi-automated phenotyping of various plant organs and growth stages, adapted to the needs of the customers:
PHENOBox: Side-view phenotyping of tall plants and agar-plates (seedlings).
PHENOScan: Agar-plate based screening of Arabidopsis roots.
HT Image Analysis: High-throughput image analysis service.
With 23 high-quality, state-of-the-art and highly specialized plant growth chambers, PlantS can precisely control environmental conditions, reproducing abiotic plant stress conditions such as frost, drought and various spectral light and CO2 gas conditions. Furthermore, we can accurately simulate various global environmental conditions from a range of different climate zones.
PHENOPlant is designed for non-invasive, morphometric and physiological hight-throughput plant phenotyping of mid-size crop plants as well as Arabidopsis and will be fully integrated into a state-of-the-art walk-in phytotron providing highly homogeneous plant growth conditions.
The phenotyping platform (PHENOTron) is designed for top-view RGB imaging of small plants like Arabidopsis thaliana and is fully integrated into one of our high-tech phytotrons.
This particular phytotron facilitates frost stress experiments (> -15°C) and is equipped with a high-tech LED light with adjustable light spectrum.
A system for phenotyping of individual tall plants, e.g. model grass Brachypodium distachyon or maize. Coupled with PhenoPipe module for calculation of multi-dimensional distances from phenotyping data, we provide an affordable, automated, open source imaging and data processing solution that can be adapted to various phenotyping applications in plant biology and beyond.
Agar-plate based screening of Arabidopis roots
SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS
Drought stress responses deconstructed: a comprehensive approach for Norway spruce seedlings using high-throughput phenotyping with integrated metabolomics and transcriptomics, Muhammad Ahmad, Sebastian Seitner, Jakub Jez, Ana Espinosa-Ruiz, Esther Carrera, Maria Ángeles Martínez-Godoy, Jorge Baños, Andrea Ganthaler, Stefan Mayr, Clara Priemer, Emily Grubb, Roman Ufimov, Marcela van Loo, Carlos Trujillo-Moya, Plant Phenomics, 2025, 100037
A bench-top Dark-Root device built with LEGO® bricks enables a non-invasive plant root development analysis in soil conditions mirroring nature. Dermendjiev G, Schnurer M, Stewart E, Nägele T, Marino G, Leister D, Thür A, Plott S, Jeż J, Ibl V. Frontiers in Plant Science, 2023, 14.
Metabolome plasticity in 241 Arabidopsis thaliana accessions reveals evolutionary cold adaptation processes. Weiszmann J, Walther D, Clauw P, Back G, Gunis J, Reichardt I, Koemeda S, Jez J, Nordborg M, Schwarzerova J, Pierides I, Nägele T, Weckwerth W. Plant Physiol. 2023, kiad298.