Scanned images of roots from wild herbaceous species, trees, maize, and wheat

These scanned images of roots from various plant species were used to compare RhizoVision Explorer, and open-source software for image analysis of plant roots, to another popular software.

Preprint of the manuscript:

Seethepalli, A., Dhakal, K., Griffiths, M., Guo, H., Freschet, G. T., York, L. M. (2021). RhizoVision Explorer: Open-source software for root image analysis and measurement standardization. bioRxiv: 2021.2004.2011.439359. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.11.439359

Description of images:

To compare the efficacy of RVE, scanned grayscale root images of maize (Zea mays L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), and various herbaceous and tree species were analyzed and compared with the image analysis results from WinRhizo™. The herbaceous species  include 9 species sampled at ca. 115 days old: (Bromus erectus, Dactylis glomerata, Holcus lanatus, Plantago lanceolata, Sanguisorba minor, Taraxacum officinale, Lotus corniculatus, Medicago sativa, Trifolium repens) (Freschet, Grégoire T. et al., 2018). The maize (Zea mays L.) roots included scans from 40-day old plants across 30 cm depths for several nodes of roots (Guo and York, 2019). The wheat (Triticum aestivum) roots are entire root systems from 10-day old wheat seedlings grown in hydroponics (Guo et al., 2020). The tree roots are from the unpublished work of M. Luke McCormack and include root branches from 14 gymnosperm species (Cephalotaxus harringtonii, Ephedra distachya, Chamaecyparis pisifera, Ginkgo biloba, Juniperus chinensis, Larix decidua, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, Picea abies, Pinus resinosa, Pinus strobus, Sciadopitys verticillata, Taxus cuspidata, Taxodium distichum, Tsuga canadensis). All these image sets were scanned separately in different labs using Epson scanners with transparency units at resolutions of 600 DPI for maize, wheat, and herbaceous species, and 800 DPI for the tree species.

The ZIP file contains a folder for each set of images, and each folder also contains the tabular data from both WinRhizo and RhizoVision Explorer.