MyROOT: A novel method and software for the semi-automatic measurement of plant root length

Abstract

Root analysis is essential for both academic and agricultural research. Despite the great advances in root phenotyping and imaging however, calculating root length is still performed manually and involves considerable amounts of labor and time. To overcome these limitations, we have developed MyROOT, a novel software for the semi-automatic quantification of root growth of seedlings growing directly in agar plates. Our method automatically determines the scale from the image of the plate, and subsequently measures the root length of the individual plants. To this aim, MyROOT combines a bottom-up root tracking approach with a hypocotyl detection algorithm. At the same time as providing accurate root measurements, MyROOT also significantly minimizes the user intervention required during the process. Using Arabidopsis, we tested MyROOT with seedlings from different growth stages. Upon comparing the data obtained using this software with that of manual root measurements, we found that there are no significant differences (t-test, p-value < 0.05). Thus, MyROOT will be of great aid to the plant science community by permitting high-throughput root length measurements while saving on both labor and time.