Rainout Shelter for Crop Testing

Plant breeders and geneticists are continuously developing new crop varieties. But field-testing them to establish whether they can actually tolerate water stress is challenging.

Part of the challenge is that it is difficult to predict the timing and amount of rainfall, which can complicate experiments in the field.

So researchers turn to rainout shelters.

Rrainout shelters are structures designed to exclude rainfall from specific areas on agricultural fields.

This allows experimentally-controlled water stress to be applied to the crops being grown in those areas.

In a new study, researchers from Agriculture Victoria in Australia describe a fully-automated, portable, and energy-independent rainout shelter. This new design will allow researchers to more effectively field test crop varieties for their tolerances to water stress.

"Developing tools to enable precise testing under natural field conditions is key for breeding water stress-tolerant crops," says Surya Kant, the lead author of the study. Field testing new crop varieties is vital. Experiments under more controlled conditions - such as in greenhouses - cannot always replicate the variable conditions found outdoors.

During field studies researchers often have to account for various soil types. In contrast, greenhouses often use premade potting mixes or a single kind of soil. There are also differences in plant density, competition with weeds, insects, pests and diseases. All of these differences add up and "results from greenhouse experiments can potentially be unreproducible in the field," says Kant.

The rainout shelters designed by Kant and his colleagues are built using steel arch frames and polyethylene covering.

"This lightweight, robust design allows the structures to be portable," says Kant. "It also means that the shelters maintain durability in all weather conditions, especially high winds."

The rainout shelters are mounted on plastic road barriers. These barriers can be filled with water to act as foundations. They can be emptied for maximum portability when the shelters need to be moved.

"Most rainout shelters run on rails that are fixed to the ground, and are therefore non-portable," says Kant. "In contrast, our rainout shelters are portable. They can be relocated to another research station to allow for crop rotation and experimental site changes."

The new rainout shelters also have other customized features, such as rain sensors and surveillance cameras. The rain sensors automatically deploy the shelters in the event of rain, such that no rainfall event is missed accidentally. The surveillance cameras allow researchers to monitor their experiments remotely.

Source: Phys.org

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