Simulated field environment with combined salt and drought stresses as a platform for phenotyping plant tolerance to salinity

盐碱化常常与干旱胁迫同时发生。因此，选育对这两种胁迫的耐受性可以显著提高作物产量。然而，经典的盐度选择通常是不成功的，部分原因是不同的盐度和干旱状况导致盐胁迫的高度变异性。不幸的是，在生物技术研究中，使用不现实的胁迫方案来模拟盐度和干旱胁迫是一种常态，而不是例外。因此，最大的挑战是获得所需的知识，以培育对田间条件具有更强耐受性的植物。我们的总体假设是，一个现实的胁迫方案模拟盐和干旱联合胁迫的田间环境，作为植物耐盐性精确表型的平台，可能会解决这个问题。这项研究将证明，高度管理的压力环境是可以创建的，植物的关键性状可以通过使用先进的非破坏性传感器来识别植物的相关性状。

Salinity occurs often simultaneously with drought stress. Therefore, breeding for tolerance to combined both stresses can contribute significantly to crop yield. However, classical selection in salinity has generally been unsuccessful, partly due to high variability of salt stress resulting from the different salinity and drought status. Unfortunately, the use of unrealistic stress protocols for mimicking salinity and drought stress is the norm rather than the exception in biotechnological studies. Therefore, the great challenge is to gain knowledge required to develop plants with enhanced tolerance to field conditions. Our overall hypothesis is that a realistic stress protocol simulating a field environment with combined salt and drought stress as a platform for precision phenotyping of plant tolerance to salinity may solve this problem. This study will demonstrate that highly managed stress environments can be created and key traits of plants can be characterised by using advanced non-destructive sensors that are able to identify relevant traits of plants.