Digital Phenotyping Allows for Detailed Growth Curve Modeling in Various Crops

Daily and precise analysis of plants, as executed through digital phenotyping, allows for the creation of very detailed growth curves. The variation in growth curves of various genotypes has till date been very cumbersome to generate, often due to lack of continuous phenotypic information. Digital phenotypic data can generate not only detailed growth curve of a genotype representing the global pattern of the underlying genetic effect but also allows to model the growth curve to capture and characterize the dynamic patterns of genetics effects of a genotype during the course of growth and development. This modeling can be very useful to zoom into the growth rates at various stages of plant growth and identify growth curve traits for further exploitation in breeding.

We demonstrate this analysis for various genotypes in crops like sugarbeet, grasses, sorghum, tobacco and miscanthus which were phenotyped by taking daily images of the crops on the PhenoFab^® system for a period of five weeks after germination. This allowed analysis of the growth curve between the different genotypes used for each of the crops in this experiment. Digital phenotyping was successfully used to quantify growth curve and analyze variations between phenotypes using a growth curvemodel.

PhenoFab^® is a registered trademark of Keygene N.V. and LemnaTec GmbH.