A Novel Automatic Method for Primary Roots Length Measurements in Arabidopsis thaliana

Plant root architecture and length are critical parameters to investigate plant growth, nutrient uptake, and overall plant health. In fact, accurate and reliable measurements of root length are essential for studying plant response to environmental conditions and for developing strategies to enhance crop productivity. MATLAB
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, a widely used programming language and software platform, offers a powerful tool-set for image processing and analysis, making it suitable also for quantifying root length from digital images. This work aims to provide an automatic method to measure plants’ root length using MATLAB
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. The images are acquired through a structure with which it is possible to always maintain the same conditions (distance, height and inclination) between the camera and the sample. The root length of 105 plants is measured manually (ImageJ) and automatically (MATLAB
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) every day for 9 days. After a comparison with manual measurements, the analysis of the lengths of the major roots is shown to be reliable, with an error of 5-10% for significant lengths. The method is first introduced, followed by the presentation of the results it provides and by the discussion of its application, advantages, and challenges.