Frost Damage Index: The Antipode of Growing Degree Days

作者：Flavian Tschurr, Norbert Kirchgeßner, Andreas Hund, Lukas Kronenberg, Jonas Anderegg, Achim Walter, Lukas Roth · 发表于：Plant Phenomics · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.34133/plantphenomics.0104 · 被引用次数：27 · 研究领域：Remote Sensing in Agriculture、Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics、Greenhouse Technology and Climate Control

Abiotic stresses such as heat and frost limit plant growth and productivity. Image-based field phenotyping methods allow quantifying not only plant growth but also plant senescence. Winter crops show senescence caused by cold spells, visible as declines in leaf area. We accurately quantified such declines by monitoring changes in canopy cover based on time-resolved high-resolution imagery in the field. Thirty-six winter wheat genotypes were measured in multiple years. A concept termed "frost damage index" (FDI) was developed that, in analogy to growing degree days, summarizes frost events in a cumulative way. The measured sensitivity of genotypes to the FDI correlated with visual scorings commonly used in breeding to assess winter hardiness. The FDI concept could be adapted to other factors such as drought or heat stress. While commonly not considered in plant growth modeling, integrating such degradation processes may be key to improving the prediction of plant performance for future climate scenarios.