For plant biologists, understanding how plants grow and interact with soil is vital for selecting resilient crops that can efficiently take up water and nutrients. But how do you monitor what is happening underground?

To address this challenge, a team from KAUST has developed a low-cost system for imaging plant growth dynamics, noninvasively and at high throughput.

Unlike other imaging tools, which are costly and stationary, the new system called MutipleXLab, is modular, mobile and, at a low cost, can continuously monitor thousands of seeds, from germination to root development.