Approaches and needs of remote sensing in phenotyping

for plant breeding

C. Mariano CossaniWheat Physiology Group- Global Wheat Program

What do the breeders expect from remote sensing?

Environmental characterization… (Private company, Sunflower breeder)

Phenotyping parental lines (crossing block) for physiological traits; (ii) Selection in early generations; (iii) Selection responding to stress/agronomic management … (Private company, Wheat Breeder)

Better environmental characterization, soil moisture, stress indices

Are breeders using remote sensing?

Measuring special traits (NDVI and CT)… (CIMMYT, wheat breeder)

Reduced time between acquisition and interpretation of data

High through put in the field and in the DATA PROCESSING

YES!!!

Major genes for phenology are not fixed in most experimental wheat populations

● RILs populations typically show a 30+ day range in flowering

● Because growth stages are not equally sensitive to stress, diverse phenology confounds effects of:

weather fluctuationsoil moisture depletionRainfall, temperatures

A priori requisites for correct phenotyping, and properly interpretation

of results

Kukri/RAC-875 DH popln (n=375) has diverse phenology; QTL analysis for yield under stress identifies only Ppd-B1 & Ppd-D1

2B 2D 3B

7A 7B

Mex heatMex droughtRAC droughtMinn droughtBool drought

5B

When the population is split in two phenology groups, the true stress adaptive QTL were identified (on 7A, 7B and 3B)

Early sub-population

Late sub-population 7A

7A

•7A on early & late sub-pops

•7B on late pop•3B on early pop

7B

3B

Reynolds, Manes, Izanloo, Langridge (2009) Phenotyping for physiological breeding and gene discovery in wheat. Annals of Applied Biology: 155: 309–320

Accurate design and/or definition of the experimental environment

Soil characteristics: Soil moisture, Field Capacity, Conductivity, Fertility, if possible monitoring also during the season… stress

indicesTools like EM38 could help to do environment characterization

Opportunities

~ 0.5 million

accessions of genetic

resources in collections worldwide for

wheat.

The World Wheat

Collection at CIMMYT has

~170,000

In situ landraceOaxaca, Mexico

K.C. Bansal Director of

NBPGR, India

Exploring Trait Diversity of Genetic Resources

HTP Tools

Rapid •10 sec

Economical•$100

Effective

CT is one of the most useful physiological traits complementing breeding

Selecting for CT in addition to visual selection for plant type, improved the ability to identify the very highest

yielding lines

New lines based on physiological trait (PT) criteria

Aerial remote sensing phenotyping platforms

Next Step

CarotenoidsWaxPigments RatiosFluorescence

CarotenoidsWaxPigments RatiosFluorescence

Biomass/yieldPlant HeightIntercepted RadiationPhotosynthesis

Biomass/yieldPlant HeightIntercepted RadiationPhotosynthesis

Thanks for your attention!