Combining UAV multisensor field phenotyping and genome-wide association studies to reveal the genetic basis of plant height in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum)

作者：Liqiang Fan, Jiajie Yang, Xuwen Wang, Zhao Liu, Bo-Wei Xu, Li Liu, Chenxu Gao, Xiantao Ai, Fuguang Li, Lei Gao, Yu Yu, Zuoren Yang · 发表于：Plant Phenomics · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.plaphe.2025.100026 · 被引用次数：7 · 研究领域：Research in Cotton Cultivation

Plant height (PH) is a key agronomic trait influencing plant architecture. Suitable PH values for cotton are important for lodging resistance, high planting density, and mechanized harvesting, making it crucial to elucidate the mechanisms of the genetic regulation of PH. However, traditional field PH phenotyping largely relies on manual measurements, limiting its large-scale application. In this study, a high-throughput phenotyping platform based on UAV-mounted RGB and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) was developed to efficiently and accurately obtain time series PHs of 419 cotton accessions in the field. Different strategies were used to extract PH values from two sets of sensor data, and the extracted values were used to train using linear regression and machine learning methods to obtain PH predictions. These predictions were consistent with manual measurements of the PH for the LiDAR (R 2 = 0.934) and RGB (R 2 = 0.914) data. The predicted PH values were used for GWAS analysis, and 34 PH-related genes, two of which have been demonstrated to regulate PH in cotton, namely, GhPH1 and GhUBP15 , were identified. We further identified significant differences in the expression of a new gene named GhPH_UAV1 in the stems of the G. hirsutum cultivar ZM24 harvested on the 15th, 35th, and 70th days after sowing compared with those from a dwarf mutant ( pag1 ), which presented shortened stem and internode phenotypes. The overexpression of GhPH_UAV1 significantly promoted cotton stem...