What is plant phenotyping?
Plant phenotyping is an umbrella term for the study of plant growth, genetics and physiology. Phenotypic studies are essential elements in many aspects of agricultural research such as field trials and crop improvement projects.
Plant phenotyping was traditionally done through manual scoring and recording of plants. However, this field is increasingly becoming automated with image analysis playing an increasingly important role in research efforts.
Automated phenotyping systems have been developed that provide data at high rates and can be operated from various types of carriers. This type of phenotyping is typically carried out in greenhouses or growth chambers where multiple automated setups can be operated with minimal human involvement.
Technology is revolutionizing plant phenotyping, enabling it to become more holistic and integrative. This shift away from "Johannsen's real things" [2,] towards a systems biology approach has allowed this transformation.
Cluster analysis based on term cooccurrence in world publications retrieved by Scopus reveals that early publications were mostly associated with genetics and metabolism, whereas more recent ones have been focused on imaging and environmental interaction (see Figure 5). This suggests a technological bias which took advantage of advances in ICT technologies and data analysis.
Why is plant phenotyping important?
Plant phenotyping is an increasingly important and dynamic area of scientific research that seeks to comprehend the characteristics, physiology and morphology of a plant. These traits (phenotypes) are determined by genetic backgrounds, production environments and management factors like irrigation or fertilizer treatment.
Phenotyping plants is essential for agricultural decision-making and plant breeders when selecting genotypes that will become future cultivars suited to various environments. Furthermore, phenotyping crops provides the basis for crop models that can accurately predict crop performance based on plant growth and physiology data.
The complex interrelationship between a plant's genotype and phenotype is well known, and can be affected by genetic background, environmental elements and crop management practices. For instance, leaf color – often used to assess plant health – is affected by many elements such as nutrition, cold/heat stress conditions and disease symptoms.
On a large scale, several methods have been devised for high throughput phenotyping of plant traits using nondestructive imaging and quantitative analysis. These techniques can be applied across many species and time scales from nanoseconds during photosynthetic processes to extended seasonal development.
How is plant phenotyping done?
Plant phenotyping is an integral component of breeding and quantitative genetics research. To do this, high-throughput measurements must be taken along with advanced imaging technologies to obtain detailed information on traits essential for crop improvement.
Phenotype refers to all physical, physiological and biochemical characteristics that define a plant's structure, composition and growth (Figure 4). It includes agronomic traits like plant size or color as well as development and physiological status throughout its life cycle.
Phenotypic traits are determined by genes and alleles on chromosomes. Genes code for polypeptide chains or functional RNA, which regulate gene expression as well as the production of proteins, metabolites and ions that influence plant development.
Furthermore, phenotypic characteristics can be altered by environmental conditions like water, temperature and light. Plant plasticity plays an essential role in adapting to these changes.
Due to advances in ICT technology and data analysis, phenotyping is becoming a powerful tool for informing process-based models or individual-based models with various degrees of architectural realism for crop and model crops (Parent & Tardieu 2014; Casadebaig et al. 2020).
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