Figure 1

Representative growth profiling and harvesting. A) Representative surface plot of relative elongation growth rates (% change per hour, vertical axis) plotted against the number of segments (defined by optical marker tags) from the apex downwards, over the duration of the imaging period in 10 minutes intervals. The darker grey-shaded, nearest profile denotes the last 10-minute interval before harvest, depicted in the greater detail in the right-hand scatterplot. B) Corresponding scatter plot of growth rates (% change in length per hour) against distance from the stem base for specific segments. Segments are numbered from the top of the plant downwards in the right-hand margin. The LOWESS regression curve follows the best fit through the growth rate data for this plant over a given 10' interval. Green dotted lines represented 65% confidence intervals for the LOWESS regression curve. Closed-box/arrow indicates the stem position that matches the maximum growth rate of the regression curve (segment 5), plotted as the right-most vertical dotted line, while the open-box/arrow indicates the first position below the top of the stem where the growth rate falls to zero (segment 10). C) Harvesting zones for young (YNG), maximum growth-rate (MGR), cessation (CSS), and stem base (OLD) zones based upon LOWESS curve. See methods for description of zone establishment. See Additional file 1: Figure S1 for complete set of 34 growth kinematic profiles.