Advances In Plant Phenotyping For More Sustainable Crop Production

Plant phenotyping is an emerging technology that involves the quantitative analysis of structural and functional plant traits. However, it is widely recognised that phenotyping needs to match similar advances in genetics if it is to not create a bottleneck in plant breeding. Advances in plant phenotyping for more sustainable crop production reviews the wealth of research on advances in plant phenotyping to meet this challenge, such as the development of new technologies including hyperspectral sensors such as LIDAR, NIR/SWIR, as well as alternative delivery/carrier systems, such as ground-based proximal distance systems and UAVs. The book details the development of plant phenotyping as a technique to analyse crop roots and functionality, as well as its use in understanding and improving crop response to biotic and abiotic stresses.

Seed quality is critical to achieving successful crop cultivation, propagation and breeding, whilst seeds are also pivotal to the conservation and management of plant genetic resources. The sector must develop a better understanding of seed quality, germination and seedling emergence to ensure successful crop establishment. Advances in seed science and technology for more sustainable crop production provides an authoritative review of the wealth of current research on key advances in seed science and technology. The collection considers the development of new techniques to ensure seed quality control, including seed phenotyping, hyper-spectral imaging and electrophotography. Later chapters discuss advances in seed coating, conditioning and priming techniques, as well as the growing use of biostimulant-based seed treatments throughout agriculture.

This book provides an overview of the innovations in crop phenotyping using emerging technologies, i.e., high-throughput crop phenotyping technology, including its concept, importance, breakthrough and applications in different crops and environments. Emerging technologies in sensing, machine vision and high-performance computing are changing the world beyond our imagination. They are also becoming the most powerful driver of the innovation in agriculture technology, including crop breeding, genetics and management. It includes the state of the art of technologies in high-throughput phenotyping, including advanced sensors, automation systems, ground-based or aerial robotic systems. It also discusses the emerging technologies of big data processing and analytics, such as advanced machine learning and deep learning technologies based on high-performance computing infrastructure. The applications cover different organ levels (root, shoot and seed) of different crops (grains, soybean, maize, potato) at different growth environments (open field and controlled environments). With the contribution of more than 20 world-leading researchers in high-throughput crop phenotyping, the authors hope this book provides readers the needed information to understand the concept, gain the insides and create the innovation of high-throughput phenotyping technology.

Seed quality is critical to achieving successful crop cultivation, propagation and breeding, whilst seeds are also pivotal to the conservation and management of plant genetic resources. The sector must develop a better understanding of seed quality, germination and seedling emergence to ensure successful crop establishment. Advances in seed science and technology for more sustainable crop production provides an authoritative review of the wealth of current research on key advances in seed science and technology. The collection considers the development of new techniques to ensure seed quality control, including seed phenotyping, hyper-spectral imaging and electrophotography. Later chapters discuss advances in seed coating, conditioning and priming techniques, as well as the growing use of biostimulant-based seed treatments throughout agriculture.

The book covers the latest development in the biosciences field covering key topics in crop improvement including ‘omic approaches to improving sustainable crop production, advancement in marker technology, strategies in genetic manipulation, crop quality and sustainability and plant microbe interaction detailing on proven technologies to address critical issue for agricultural sustainability which are beneficial for researchers and students. The book also includes aspects of preserving crops after harvest as this is a key factor in promoting sustainable crop quality in terms of addressing waste, choosing the appropriate packaging and moving crops through the food and industrial supply chain. An important strategy to overcome the challenges in providing food for the world population in a sustainable manner is through concerted efforts by crop scientists to embrace new technologies in increasing yield, quality and improving food safety while minimizing adverse environmental impact of the agricultural activities. Most of the proven molecular and genetic technologies in crop science have been tested and verified in model plants such as Arabidopsis and tomato. The technologies, when deployed on various plant species of importance for human nutrition and industrial applications, including cereals, vegetables, fruits, herbs, fibre and oil crops, face many challenges, not only due to their longer life cycle but many other physiological and environmental factors affecting yield and quality of plant products. Furthermore, major impacts on crop production due to catastrophic diseases and global climate change needs urgent and innovative solutions. Therefore a systematic approach, employing various leading-edge technologies that enable the functional elucidation of key pathway genes via ‘omics tools, genome wide association with desired phenotypes and development of cost effective and practicable molecular tools for selection, is vital. The International Conference on Crop Improvement was held to address these and other pressing issues. This volume summarizes the keynote presentations from the meeting and highlights addition discussions that are critical to crop improvement in a challenging time.

Plant phenotyping is the thorough assessment of plant traits such as growth, development, adaptation, yield, quality, tolerance, resistance, architecture, and the basic measurement of individual quantitative parameters that form the basis for understanding of traits. Genetic approaches to understand plant growth and development have always benefitted from phenotyping techniques that are simple, rapid and measurable in units. The forward genetics approach is all about understanding the trait inheritance using the phenotypic data and in most cases it is the mutant phenotypes that formed the basis for understanding of gene functions. With rapid advancement of genotyping techniques, high throughput genotyping has become a reality at costs people never imagined to be that low, but the phenotypic methods did not receive same attention. However, without quality phenotyping data the genotyping data cannot be effectively put to use in plant improvement. Therefore efforts are underway to develop high-throughput phenotyping methods in plants to keep pace with revolutionary advancement in genotyping techniques to enhance the efficiency of crop improvement programs. Keeping this in mind, we described in this book the best phenomic tools available for trait improvement in some of the world’s most important crop plants.

Identification of desirable genotypes with traits of interest is discernible for making genetic improvement of crop plants. In this direction, screening of a large number of germplasm for desirable traits and transfer of identified traits into agronomic backgrounds through recombination breeding is the common breeding approach. Although visual screening is easier for qualitative traits, its use is not much effective for quantitative traits and also for those, which are difficult to score visually. Therefore, it is imperative to phenotype the germplasm accessions and breeding materials precisely using high throughput phenomics tools for challenging and complex traits under natural, controlled and harsh environmental conditions. Realizing the importance of phenotyping data towards identification and utilization of a germplasm as donors, global scientific community has exerted increased focus on advancing phenomics in crop plants leading to development of a number of techniques and methodologies for screening of agronomic, physiological, and biochemical traits. These technologies have now become much advanced and entered the era of digital science. This book provides exhaustive information on various aspects related to phenotyping of crop plants and offers a most comprehensive reference on the developments made in traditional and high throughput phenotyping of agricultural crops.

Provides an authoritative review of the latest research in the development and application of plant factories with artificial lighting (PFALs) throughout an array of agricultural settings Assesses the environmental impact of urban vertical farms and how the use of energy and other resources can be optimised to minimise this impact Considers the application of machine vision, plant phenotyping and spectral imaging in plant factories to monitor plant health and growth

This collection starts by reviewing key issues such as valuing, identifying and monitoring plant genetic diversity. The book goes on to assess advances in in-situ and on-farm strategies for protecting crop wild relatives and landraces. Chapters cover topics such as local strategies for preserving crop genetic resources, in-situ management of wild plant populations, monitoring genetic diversity and collecting wild varieties. The book also discusses community-based conservation strategies, participatory plant breeding programmes and seed systems to ensure farmer access to improved varieties. Part 4 reviews key challenges facing ex-situ collections such as genebanks, including improved storage and conservation techniques. Parts 5 and 6 assesses improvements in characterising and evaluating plant genetic resources such as DNA-based screening and phenotyping, as well as ways of improving the quality and exchange of information and germplasm for use in breeding improved varieties.