Management and Characterization of Abiotic Stress via PhénoField®, a High-Throughput Field Phenotyping Platform

Abstract

In order to evaluate the impact of water deficit in field conditions, researchers or breeders must set up large experiment networks in very restrictive field environments. Experience shows that half of the field trials are not relevant because of climatic conditions that do not allow the stress scenario to be tested. The PhénoField ® platform is the first field based infrastructure in the European Union to ensure protection against rainfall for a large number of plots, coupled with the non-invasive acquisition of crops’ phenotype. In this paper, we will highlight the PhénoField ® production capability using data from 2017-wheat trial. The innovative approach of the PhénoField ® platform consists in the use of automatic irrigating rainout shelters coupled with high throughput field phenotyping to complete conventional phenotyping and micrometeorological densified measurements. Firstly, to test various abiotic stresses, automatic mobile rainout shelters allow fine management of fertilization or irrigation by driving daily the intensity and period of the application of the desired limiting factor on the evaluated crop. This management is based on micro-meteorological measurements coupled with a simulation of a carbon, water and nitrogen crop budget. Furthermore, as high-throughput plant-phenotyping under controlled conditions is well advanced, comparable evaluation in field conditions is enabled through phenotyping gantries equipped with various optical sensors. This approach, giving access to either similar or innovative variables compared manual measurements, is moreover distinguished by its capacity for dynamic analysis. Thus, the interactions between genotypes and the environment can be deciphered and better detailed since this gives access not only to the environmental data but also to plant responses to limiting hydric and nitrogen conditions. Further data analyses provide access to the curve parameters of various indicator kinetics, all the more integrative and relevant of plant behavior under stressful conditions. All these specificities of the PhénoField ® platform open the way to the improvement of various categories of crop models, the fine characterization of variety behavior throughout the growth cycle and the evaluation of particular sensors better suited to a specific research question.

High-Throughput Plant Phenotyping Platform (HT3P) as a Novel Tool for Estimating Agronomic Traits From the Lab to the Field

“…PhénoField R is the first field-based facility in the European Union, one equipped with high-throughput phenotyping devices on a gantry, automatic irrigating mobile rainout shelters on tracks, and environmental recording sensors. By controlling both irrigation and fertilization, this gantry-based HT3P was used to investigate water and nitrogen stress (Beauchene et al, 2019 ). Likewise, Mini-Plot, developed by Forschungszentrum Jülich, consists of a closed greenhouse area and an open-fenced area, containing 90 and 30 Mini-Plots, respectively; it was used to quantify the disease severity of barley varieties (Thomas et al, 2018 ).…”

Opportunities and limits of controlled-environment plant phenotyping for climate response traits

“…At the Rothamsted Research facility, UK, a fixed crane equipped with cameras was successfully used to determine wheat heading and flowering stages by high-throughput phenotyping a field stand (Sadeghi-Tehran et al 2017 ). A low level of control can be applied by automatic rainout shelters to field stands and the phenotype as a response to water depletion can be recorded (Beauchêne et al 2019 ). Any of the above-mentioned field phenotyping devices provide a smart solution to dissect G x E x M interaction, but all are confined to the environment present at the point in time and space of the respective measurement (Araus and Cairns 2014 ).…”

Recent developments and potential of robotics in plant eco-phenotyping

“…Low-altitude remote sensing is mainly carried out through drone platforms or some robot platforms such as Gantry or Crane with sufficient height and extension capabilities [90,91]. Compared with Proximal sensing platforms, commercial drone technology has become more mature.…”