In plant science, the suboptimal match of growing conditions hampers the transfer of knowledge from controlled environments in glasshouses or climate chambers to field environments. Here we present the PhenoSphere, a plant cultivation infrastructure designed to simulate field-like environments in a reproducible manner. To benchmark the PhenoSphere, the effects on plant growth of weather conditions of a single maize growing season and of an averaged season over three years are compared to those of a standard glasshouse and of four years of field trials. The single season simulation proves superior to the glasshouse and the averaged season in the PhenoSphere: The simulated weather regime of the single season triggers plant growth and development progression very similar to that observed in the field. Hence, the PhenoSphere enables detailed analyses of performance-related trait expression and causal biological mechanisms in plant populations exposed to weather conditions of current and anticipated future climate scenarios.
CITATION STYLE
Heuermann, M. C., Knoch, D., Junker, A., & Altmann, T. (2023). Natural plant growth and development achieved in the IPK PhenoSphere by dynamic environment simulation. Nature Communications, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41332-4
Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.