Conclusions
An efficient and high-throughput screening protocol to
select salt-tolerant rice is required to accelerate the development
of salt-tolerant rice cultivars. A non-destructive
image-based phenotyping method to analyse the responses
of rice to different levels of salinity stress has been
developed and revealed differences in the effects of salt
stress in two cultivars of rice, IR64 and Fatmawati. Use of
non-destructive imaging technologies, such as those described
here, in combination with measurements of tissue
ion concentration, allow the differentiation between the
ionic and osmotic components of salt stress in growing
rice. This will enable the identification of new traits and
sources of salinity tolerance genes that can be used to
pyramid different salinity tolerance mechanisms into elite
rice breeding lines.