High Throughput Field Phenotyping To Advance Precision Agriculture And Enhance Genetic Gain Volume Ii

This Research Topic is part of the High-Throughput Field Phenotyping to Advance Precision Agriculture and Enhance Genetic Gain series. The discipline of “High Throughput Field Phenotyping” (HTFP) has gained momentum in the last decade. HTFP includes a wide range of disciplines such as plant science, agronomy, remote sensing, and genetics; as well as biochemistry, imaging, computation, agricultural engineering, and robotics. High throughput technologies have substantially increased our ability to monitor and quantify field experiments and breeding nurseries at multiple scales. HTFP technology can not only rapidly and cost-effectively replace tedious and subjective ratings in the field, but can also unlock the potential of new, latent phenotypes representing underlying biological function. These advances have also provided the ability to follow crop growth and development across seasons at high and previously inaccessible spatial and temporal resolutions. By combining these data with measurements of all environmental factors affecting plant growth and yield (“Envirotyping”), genotypic-specific reaction norms and phenotypic plasticity may be elucidated.

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.

Plant improvement has shifted its focus from yield, quality and disease resistance to factors that will enhance commercial export, such as early maturity, shelf life and better processing quality. Conventional plant breeding methods aiming at the improvement of a self-pollinating crop, such as wheat, usually take 10-12 years to develop and release of the new variety. During the past 10 years, significant advances have been made and accelerated methods have been developed for precision breeding and early release of crop varieties. This edited volume summarizes concepts dealing with germplasm enhancement and development of improved varieties based on innovative methodologies that include doubled haploidy, marker assisted selection, marker assisted background selection, genetic mapping, genomic selection, high-throughput genotyping, high-throughput phenotyping, mutation breeding, reverse breeding, transgenic breeding, shuttle breeding, speed breeding, low cost high-throughput field phenotyping, etc. It is an important reference with special focus on accelerated development of improved crop varieties.

Recent advances in high-throughput phenotyping, genomics, and precision agriculture have provided plant breeders and farmers with a wealth of information on the growth and development of crop plants. Methods for effectively leveraging these data resources are needed in order to drive genetic gain in breeding programs and to increase efficiency in farming systems. Three novel approaches for the development and management of high yielding, adapted crop varieties are presented. First, aerial hyperspectral reflectance phenotypes of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) were used to develop relationship matrices for the prediction of grain yield within and across environments with genomic selection. Multi-kernel models combining marker/pedigree information with hyperspectral reflectance phenotypes gave the highest accuracies overall; however, improvements in accuracy over single-kernel marker- and pedigree-based models were reduced when correcting for days to heading. Second, aerial phenotypes collected on small, unreplicated plots representing the seed limited stage of wheat breeding programs were evaluated for their potential use as selection criteria for improving grain yield. The aerial phenotypes were shown to be heritable and positively correlated with grain yield measurements evaluated in replicated yield trials. Results also suggest that selection on aerial phenotypes at the seed-limited stage would cause a directional response in phenology due to confounding of those traits. Lastly, on-farm trials were conducted in collaboration with the New York Corn and Soybean Growers Association to identify optimal planting rates for corn (Zea mays L.) and soybean (Glycine max L.) given the underlying spatial variability of the soil and topographical characteristics of the fields. A random forest regression-based approach was created to develop variable rate planting designs for maximizing yields.

Plant improvement has shifted its focus from yield, quality and disease resistance to factors that will enhance commercial export, such as early maturity, shelf life and better processing quality. Conventional plant breeding methods aiming at the improvement of a self-pollinating crop usually take 10-12 years to develop and release of the new variety. During the past 10 years, significant advances have been made and accelerated methods have been developed for precision breeding and early release of crop varieties. This book focuses on the accelerated breeding technologies that have been adopted for major oil crops. It summarizes concepts dealing with germplasm enhancement and development of improved varieties based on innovative methodologies that include doubled haploidy, marker assisted selection, marker assisted background selection, genetic mapping, genomic selection, high-throughput genotyping, high-throughput phenotyping, mutation breeding, reverse breeding, transgenic breeding, shuttle breeding, speed breeding, low cost high-throughput field phenotyping, etc. This edited volume is therefore an excellent reference on accelerated development of improved crop varieties.

Plant improvement has shifted its focus from yield, quality and disease resistance to factors that will enhance commercial export, such as early maturity, shelf life and better processing quality. Conventional plant breeding methods aiming at the improvement of a self-pollinating crop, such as wheat, usually take 10-12 years to develop and release of the new variety. During the past 10 years, significant advances have been made and accelerated methods have been developed for precision breeding and early release of crop varieties. This work summarizes concepts dealing with germplasm enhancement and development of improved varieties based on innovative methodologies that include doubled haploidy, marker assisted selection, marker assisted background selection, genetic mapping, genomic selection, high-throughput genotyping, high-throughput phenotyping, mutation breeding, reverse breeding, transgenic breeding, shuttle breeding, speed breeding, low cost high-throughput field phenotyping, etc. It is an important reference with special focus on accelerated development of improved crop varieties.

This book covers different physiological processes, tools, and their application in crop breeding. Each chapter emphasizes on a specific trait/physiological process and its importance in crop, their phenotyping information and how best it can be employed for crop improvement by projecting on success stories in different crops. It covers wide range of physiological topics including advances in field phenotyping, role of endophytic fungi, metabolomics, application of stable isotopes, high throughput phenomics, transpiration efficiency, root phenotyping and root exudates for improved resource use efficiency, cuticular wax and its application, advances in photosynthetic studies, leaf spectral reflectance and physiological breeding in hardy crops like millets. This book also covers the futuristic research areas like artificial intelligence and machine learning. This contributed volume compiles all application parts of physiological tools along with their advanced research in these areas, which is very much need of the hour for both academics and researchers for ready reference. This book will be of interest to teachers, researchers, climate change scientists, capacity builders, and policy makers. Also, the book serves as additional reading material for undergraduate and graduate students of agriculture, physiology, botany, ecology, and environmental sciences. National and international agricultural scientists will also find this a useful resource.

This book emphasizes on cutting-edge next-generation smart plant breeding approaches for maximizing the use of genomic resources generated by high-throughput genomics in the post-genomic era. Through this book the readers would learn about the recent development in the genomic approaches such as genotype by sequencing (GBS) for genomic analysis (SNPs, Single Nucleotide Polymorphism), whole-genome re-sequencing (WGRS) and RNAseq for transcriptomic analysis (DEGs, Differentially Expressed Genes). To maximize the genetic gains in the cereal/food crops, the book covers topics on transgenic breeding, genome editing, high-throughput phenotyping, reliable/precision phenotyping and genomic information-based analysis. In the era of climate change and the ever-increasing population, food security and nutritional security are the primary concern of plant breeders, growers, and policymakers to address the UN’s sustainable development goals. Chapters of this book cohere around these goals and covers techniques such as (QTL mapping, association studies, candidate gene identification), omics, RNAi [through micro RNA (miRNA), small interfering RNA (siRNA) and artificial micro RNA (amiRNA)]. It also covers other genomic techniques like antisense technology, genome editing (CRISPR/cas9, base editing) and epigenomics that assist the crop improvement programmes to fulfil the UNs sustainable development goals. It explores the influence of rapidly available sequencing data assisting in the next generation breeding programmes. This volume is a productive resource for the students, researchers, scientists, teachers, public and private sector stakeholders involved in the genetic enhancement of cereal crops.