In-house phenomics and robotics

The SensyPAM- High-throughput temporal photosynthesis measurements in plants

The SensyPAM high-throughput platform for F-based measurement of the circadian clock rhythm. (A) A large carousel suitable for 14 plastic trays, holding 24 plants each, is spinning to the (B) imaging chamber. Labeled with ‘1’ and ‘2’ are the first and second dark adaptation compartments. ‘3’ is the imaging chamber and ‘4’ is the post imaging chamber. (C) The imaging chamber is installed with acA-1920-40um CCD camera (Basler, Exton, PA, US) with and LED light panel (see Methods) and controlled by the SensyPAM software package. (D) Three to four areas of interests (AOIs) are marked in the SensyPAM software for each leaf prior to experiment start. (E) The light pulses are similar to that of the saturation pulse method (Schreiber, 2004). The F parameters, and light durations are explained in Table S5. For the clock measurement F is measured every 2.5 hours for 3 days under continuous light. (F) For the clock analysis the NPQlss ((Fm-Fmlss)/Fmlss) is calculated and the free-running period (FRP), amplitude (AMP) and RAE is extracted in the BioDare2 website (https://biodare2.ed.ac.uk).

We designed and built the SensyPAM with thought of providing the user to measure hundreds of genotypes for rhythmicity of the photosynthesis, which is an output of the circadian clock. For us it allowed comparisons between gene pools under domestication and dissection of these differences to genetic components, including cytonuclear interactions. Initially, it was designed for barley plants, but very easily we could adapt it to measure Arabidopsis, tomato, pomegranates and other plants. No surprisingly, they all showed rhythmicity and mutations showed significant modulation of the photosynthesis. The SensyPAM was built in collaboration with the team of eng. Roi Levav (SensyTIV), mainly by Oded Anner who was instrumental in designing the optics and image analysis.

The RoboSeed- Automated extraction of cereal mature embryos

In cereals, mature embryos are a prime source for fundamental biological and molecular research, and, being a source of protein, they are also utilized in the food and feed industries. Moreover, mature embryos could also serve as a source for tissue culture and gene modification and therefore there is a need for technologies that will replace labor-intensive extraction methods with higher-throughput and automated pipelines. We developed and implementation of an embryo extraction device named "RoboSeed" which uses machine vision to find the embryo position in the cereal seed and extract the intact embryo from the shell using a mechanical press. Although in the current version the RoboSeed device is semiautomatic, when an operator must feed the device with the grain in the correct position and orientation, future work will include an automatic feeding of the grain and extraction of the embryo.
The RoboSeed facilitates automated extraction of cereal mature embryos. (A) The whole machine (B) conveyor with anvil (C) device cover , (D) seed anvil, and (E) electrical and electronic components.