Integrative field scale phenotyping for investigating metabolic components of water stress within a vineyard

BACKGROUND: There is currently a high requirement for field phenotyping methodologies/technologies to determine quantitative traits related to crop yield and plant stress responses under field conditions. METHODS: We employed an unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a thermal camera as a high-throughput phenotyping platform to obtain canopy level data of the vines under three irrigation treatments. High-resolution imagery (< 2.5 cm/pixel) was employed to estimate the canopy conductance (g (c)) via the leaf energy balance model. In parallel, physiological stress measurements at leaf and stem level as well as leaf sampling for primary and secondary metabolome analysis were performed. RESULTS: Aerial g (c) correlated significantly with leaf stomatal conductance (g (s)) and stem sap flow, benchmarking the quality of our remote sensing technique. Metabolome profiles were subsequently linked with g (c) and g (s) via partial least square modelling. By this approach malate and flavonols, which have previously been implicated to play a role in stomatal function under controlled greenhouse conditions within model species, were demonstrated to also be relevant in field conditions. CONCLUSIONS: We propose an integrative methodology combining metabolomics, organ-level physiology and UAV-based remote sensing of the whole canopy responses to water stress within a vineyard. Finally, we discuss the general utility of this integrative methodology for broad field phenotyping. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13007-017-0241-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.