Plant root image processing and analysis based on 2D scanner

Root is an important organ for Plant to uptake nutrient and water from the surrounding soil. And the capability of plant to obtain nutrient and water is closely relevant to its root distribution and architecture under ground. Quantitative measurement and analysis of plant root architecture parameters are very important for understanding and study growth of plant, as well as preventing disaster from diseases and insect. To implement the automatic measurement for the parameters of plant root architecture with computer, a 2D architecture analysis system of plant root was developed with using desktop scanner and image processing technologies in this paper. A desktop scanner was used to acquire the digital image of plant roots washed from soil sample. After image processing, segmentation and analysis, the length of plant root was measured with chain-code method, the surface area of plant root was got with cylinder approximate model, and the average root diameter was calculated from the total root area and length of a sample. The programming experiment showed that the method proposed in this paper was useful and effective.