Gernot Bodner

BOKU University | boku · Division of Agronomy

Purpose The complex process of post-mining land reclamation poses a great challenge in combatting land degradation and food insecurity. In this study, a field experiment was conducted to determine the effects of different soil amendments on soil organic carbon (SOC) characteristics and plant biomass to reclaim a highly degraded soil after tin-minin...

Marker-assisted selection (MAS) plays a crucial role in crop breeding improving the speed and precision of conventional breeding programmes by quickly and reliably identifying and selecting plants with desired traits. However, the efficacy of MAS depends on several prerequisites, with precise phenotyping being a key aspect of any plant breeding pro...

In addition to standard laboratory testing of soil samples, on‐farm soil health monitoring methods are needed to help farmers assess progress in adopting new management practices. However, there is currently a lack of studies evaluating the suitability of semi‐quantitative on‐farm indicators to accurately rank target soil properties according to la...

Manual analysis of (mini-)rhizotron (MR) images is tedious. Several methods have been proposed for semantic root segmentation based on homogeneous, single-source MR datasets. Recent advances in deep learning (DL) have enabled automated feature extraction, but comparisons of segmentation accuracy, false positives and transferability are virtually la...

Water stress is the main risk facing sugar beet production in Europe and is expected to worsen with climate change. Therefore, future production essentially depends on the traits that sustain growth during water shortages. In this study, we investigated the interplay of stomatal conductance and transpiration rate as well as the root characteristics...

Although fruits are rich in health-promoting properties and associated with several health benefits to humans, they are highly susceptible to pathogen infection which results in the deterioration of fruit quality and food waste and subsequent increased economic losses. Consequently, the development of techniques to detect decaying fruits at an earl...

The aim of global carbon (C) neutrality brings soils and their potential for C storage into the spotlight. Improved agricultural management techniques such as minimum or no-tillage are thought to foster soil C sequestration. However, the underlying mechanisms are still not well understood. In this study, we investigated the inter-relations of soil...

Purpose Since principles of conservation agriculture mimic the soil conditions of undisturbed natural soils, linking aggregation and dissolved organic matter (DOM) occlusion would therefore provide a targeted descriptor for soil health advances of innovative farming systems. This study aimed to assess structure-related DOM patterns of conservation...

Purpose Tackling the global carbon deficit through soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration in agricultural systems has been a focal point in recent years. However, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of actual on-farm SOC sequestration potentials in order to derive effective strategies. Methods Therefore, we chose 21 study sites in North-E...

Fertilizers can affect formation, size distribution and stability of soil aggregates in agricultural ecosystems. Although many independent studies have been recently carried out to understand the effects of fertilizers on soil aggregates in farmland ecosystems of China, the results remain widely contradictory. A meta-analysis was conducted using a...

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas stemming mainly from nitrogen (N)-fertilizer application. It is challenging to quantify N2O emissions from agroecosystems because of the dearth of measured data and high spatial variability of the emissions. The eco-hydrological model SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) simulates hydrological process...

Cover cropping provides versatile benefits for sustainable agriculture, but many cover crops are potential host plants for pathogens such as Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary. Therefore, 14 cover crops were investigated for their interaction with sclerotia, topsoil moisture and temperature in two consecutive field trials in East Austria. In J...

Root traits are fundamental for the resilience of plants under stress. Image-based phenotyping can provide relevant datasets for the underlying root traits. However, root phenotyping is still hampered by methodological constrains, in particular extraction of root traits from images taken under semi-natural conditions. In this study, we thus propose...

There are high expectations that plant breeding for improved root systems will substantially advance adaptation of crops to resource‐limited environments and climate change. Image‐based phenotyping technologies provide novel opportunities to characterize root systems and overcome traditional throughput limitation in sampling and analysis. This chap...

Soil structure is dependent on a dynamic interplay between plants, microbes, and primary soil constituents (e.g. particle size distribution, organic matter), shaping the physical environment for crop growth. Degradation of soil structure is also one of the key reasons for the exacerbating threats from erosion and loss of fertility in arable soils....

Aims Diversity of root systems among genetic resources can contribute to optimize water and nutrient uptake. Topsoil exploitation vs. deep soil exploration represent two contrasting ideotypes in relation to resource use. Our study reveals how rooting patterns changed between wheat wild progenitors and landraces in regard to these ideotypes. Method...

Phenotyping root systems provide essential information for plant breeding, particularly aiming for better abiotic stress resistance. Rhizobox systems provide a field-near growth environment for in situ imaging of root systems in soil. A protocol for RGB and hyperspectral imaging of rhizobox-grown plants is presented that enables gathering of root s...

We conducted a field- and pot experiment with peas to investigate the impact of soil tillage and herbicide applications on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), plant growth, phosphorus concentrations, C:N ratio in plants and yield. The field study was carried out in a long-term soil tillage experiment where four tillage treatments have been compared...

Hyperspectral imaging has many applications. However, the high device costs and low hyperspectral image resolution are major obstacles limiting its wider application in agriculture and other fields. Hyperspectral image reconstruction from a single RGB image fully addresses these two problems. We applied permutation tests to select the robust HSCNN-...

Dieses Buch gibt einen fundierten Einblick in den aktuellen Stand der Wurzelforschung. An Beispielen repräsentativer Pflanzenarten mit charakteristischen Lebensformtypen werden sowohl Aufbau und Formenmannigfaltigkeit der Pflanzenwurzel als auch Funktionen, ökologische Zusammenhänge und Schädigungen dargestellt. Anhand von 225 detailreichen, maßsta...

Non-invasive imaging technologies continue to rise in use; innovation of root and rhizosphere imaging devices has however not kept pace. The lack of automated, high-resolution root imaging and analysis hampers our scientific understanding and prevents application of minirhizotrons in agricultural and environmental settings. Two complementary automa...

The use of minirhizotron (MR) imaging systems is gaining popularity, resulting in a large amount of collected images-which need efficient and accurate processing for root trait extraction. This study proposes a neural network-based solution for automatic measurement of root length in images taken by MR systems. Current root length measurement techn...

Minirhizotron (MR) imaging systems are key instruments to study the hidden half of plants and ecosystems, i.e. roots, mycorrhiza and their interactions with pathogens, fauna etc. in the rhizosphere. However, despite scarce data on the 'hidden half' of plants and ecosystems, e.g. needed for better understanding species' ecophysiology, breeding resou...

Due to the absence of a suitable method and standardized procedures, the root systems of plants have been evaluated to a much lesser extent than aboveground organs. The aim of this article is (i) to provide a detailed description and thus standardization of an upgraded procedure of electrical capacitance measurement for evaluating the size of the r...

Plant root systems are essential for sustainable agriculture, conveying resource-efficient genotypes and species with benefits to soil ecosystem functions. Targeted selection of species/genotypes depends on available root system information. Currently there is no standardized approach for comprehensive root system characterization, suggesting the n...

Understanding the effects of agricultural management practices on soil functionality is an ongoing challenge in environmental science and agricultural practice. In the present study we quantified the effects of changes in tillage intensity on soil physical quality and pore size distribution after 6, 10 and 23 years. At three long-term tillage exper...

Core Ideas Novel insights in the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi tillage cover crop interaction based on a long term trial. Cover crops and soil tillage affect arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi colonization in the subsequent main crop. Nutrient concentrations and C/N ratio were affected by soil tillage. Reduction of soil tillage and whole‐year coverage ar...

Zusammenfassung Im Rahmen der Tagung „Wurzel und Rhizosphäre: Ökophysiologie, Humushaushalt und Bodenmanagement” im September 2015 wurden Wurzelfreilegungen von Hopfen und Mais in Wolnzach (Bayern) durchgeführt. Das Hauptziel der Untersuchungen war, die Möglichkeiten und den Wert von Wurzelfreilegungen im Feld zu demonstrieren. Für die Hopfenfreile...

Background Root phenotyping aims to characterize root system architecture because of its functional role in resource acquisition. RGB imaging and analysis procedures measure root system traits via colour contrasts between roots and growth media or artificial backgrounds. In the case of plants grown in soil-filled rhizoboxes, where the colour contra...

Faba bean (Vicia faba L.) is an important source of protein but breeding for increased yield stability and stress tolerance is hampered by the scarcity of phenotyping information. Because comparisons of cultivars adapted to different agro-climatic zones improve our understanding of stress tolerance mechanisms, the root architecture and morphology o...

Faba beans are highly nutritious because of their high protein content: they are a good source of mineral nutrients, vitamins, and numerous bioactive compounds. Equally important is the contribution of faba bean in maintaining the sustainability of agricultural systems, as it is highly efficient in the symbiotic fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. Th...

Established measurement methods for hydraulic soil properties cover a limited soil moisture range. Simulations of soil water dynamics based on such observations are therefore rarely representative for all conditions from saturation to drought. Recent technical developments facilitate efficient and cheap collecting of soil water characteristics data...

European pulse production faces a continued loss of cultivated area along with decreasing or stagnant yields. Vicia faba is a traditional legume with high genetic diversity cultivated in a wide range of European climates. Therefore V. faba is promising to identify stable and high yielding genotypes for specific target environments. Mid-latitudes ar...

Spectral imaging makes use of different wavelength to infer on plant properties and processes. In the context of plant phenotyping, spectral imaging mostly uses multispectral sensors with defined broad- band wavelength in then VIS (400-700 nm), NIR (700-1100 nm) and SWIR (1100-2500 nm) regions. Hyperspectral imaging on the contrary captures the ent...

Cover cropping is a key agro-environmental measure in Europe. Cover crops may reduce N2O emissions by reducing soil nitrate content, while easily decomposable residues can enhance greenhouse gas losses. In a field study, emissions from the cover cropped fields compared to the fallow at two climatically different sites (semi-arid vs. humid) in Austr...

Drought is a significant factor limiting crop production in arid conditions. In the dry climatic weather situation of southern Russia, ten-year laboratory trials and subsequent field experiments were laid out on various barley varieties collected across the globe during 2007-2017 period. This study was conducted to ascertain from the collection of...

Quantifications of root system architecture and growth dynamics became essential in sustainable agriculture, bio-engineering and underground ecology in general. Assessing of root architectural parameters is still challenging also owing to different methodological challenges and high-cost facilities required. The objective of this study was to desig...

SUPPORTING INFORMATION Zhao J, Sykacek P, Bodner G, Rewald B. Root traits of European Vicia faba cultivars—Using machine learning to explore adaptations to agroclimatic conditions. Plant Cell Environ. 2017;1–13. https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.13062 Figure S1 Significantly different root traits between two groups of Vicia faba cultivars with Norther...

Better understanding of plant root dynamics is essential to improve resource use efficiency of agricultural systems and increase the resistance of crop cultivars against environmental stresses. An experimental protocol is presented for RGB and hyperspectral imaging of root systems. The approach uses rhizoboxes where plants grow in natural soil over...

Zusammenfassung Die Bodenverdichtung ist ein aktuelles Problem der intensiven Grünlandwirtschaft. Daher wurden in einem repräsentativen österreichischen Grünlandgebiet an 22 unterschiedlichen Standorten die Lagerungsdichte (LD), der Eindringwiderstand (EW) und das Porenvolumen von typischen Dauergrünlandböden (Braunerde, Pseudogley, Gley) bis zu ei...

Research gaps in understanding flood changes at the catchment scale caused by changes in forest management, agricultural practices, artificial drainage and terracing are identified. Potential strategies in addressing these gaps are proposed, such as complex systems approaches to link processes across time scales, long-term experiments on physical-c...

This paper presents the development and application of a hyperspectral imaging system for root phenotyping. For sustainable plant production root systems optimized for growing conditions in the field are required. Therefore, the presented system is used for the research in the field of drought resistance of roots. The system is used to acquire spat...

Root phenotyping provides trait information for plant breeding. A shortcoming of high throughput root phenotyping is the limitation to seedling plants and failure to infer on mature root systems. We suggest root architecture (RSA) models to predict mature root traits and overcome the inference problem. Sixteen pea genotypes were phenotyped in (i) s...

Phenotyping local crop cultivars is becoming more and more important, as they are an important genetic source for breeding – especially in regard to inherent root system architectures. Machine learning algorithms are promising tools to assist in the analysis of complex data sets; novel approaches are need to apply them on root phenotyping data of m...

Modern imaging technology provides new approaches to plant phenotyping for traits relevant to crop yield and resource efficiency. Our objective was to investigate water use strategies at early growth stages in durum wheat genetic resources using shoot imaging at the ScreenHouse phenotyping facility combined with physiological measurements. Twelve d...

Hydrology is a major driver of biogeochemical processes underlying the distinct productivity of different biomes, including agricultural plantations. Understanding factors governing water fluxes in soil is therefore a key target for hydrological management. Our aim was to investigate changes in soil hydraulic conductivity driven by morphologically...