Sending breeders into fields to manually measure the characteristics of plants is slow, laborious and expensive. Remote sensing technologies, coupled with advanced analytics, offer the promise of faster, more accurate data collection to improve the speed at which plant breeders can bring better cultivars to the market.
Purdue University scientists developed that technology under the Transportation Energy Resources from Renewable Agriculture (TERRA) program, through a $6.6 million US Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) grant awarded in 2015. The agency is funding a second phase of the TERRA project at $4.5 million that is being matched with another $4.5M from strategic partners, including AgAlumni Seed, Corteva Agriscience, Beck's Hybrids and Headwall Photonics.
'Manual phenotyping is slow and costly. To do all of this measurement by hand takes a lot of people, and you don't get a lot of data,' said Mitch Tuinstra, a Purdue professor of plant breeding and genetics, Wickersham Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Research, and principal investigator for the project. 'Next-generation phenotyping technologies enable plant scientists and plant breeders to collect data automatically by remote sensing and process it using computational algorithms.'
The platform developed under the TERRA project employs several types of sensors, including high-resolution RGB cameras as well as hyperspectral imaging, LIDAR and thermal infrared sensors. Together, they can be mounted to on-ground farm machinery or unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to detect plant height, canopy structure, plant architecture, biomass yield and more.
The DOE is interested in the sensing platform to advance sorghum as a feedstock for cellulosic biofuels. The technology is robust enough, however, that it can be used for many other feed, fibre and biofuel crops.
To meet industry needs, Tuinstra and colleagues founded GRYFN, a startup aimed at getting the sensing technology into the hands of companies that can use it in their breeding programs. Its CEO, Matt Bechdol, said the company will connect with plant breeders to demonstrate the benefits of the technology and then use their input to improve the technology so that companies can make the best use of it.
Read the full article on the Milling and Grain website, HERE.
Purdue University scientists developed that technology under the Transportation Energy Resources from Renewable Agriculture (TERRA) program, through a $6.6 million US Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) grant awarded in 2015. The agency is funding a second phase of the TERRA project at $4.5 million that is being matched with another $4.5M from strategic partners, including AgAlumni Seed, Corteva Agriscience, Beck's Hybrids and Headwall Photonics.
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| Sensing technology, including high-resolution RGB cameras, hyperspectral imaging, LIDAR and thermal infrared sensor, can improve the accuracy and efficiency of plant phenotyping. In a fraction of the time it would take researchers to manually measure plants in a field, sensors can assess plant height, canopy structure, plant architecture, biomass yield and more. Image credit: (Purdue Agricultural Communication photos/Tom Campbell) |
'Manual phenotyping is slow and costly. To do all of this measurement by hand takes a lot of people, and you don't get a lot of data,' said Mitch Tuinstra, a Purdue professor of plant breeding and genetics, Wickersham Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Research, and principal investigator for the project. 'Next-generation phenotyping technologies enable plant scientists and plant breeders to collect data automatically by remote sensing and process it using computational algorithms.'
The platform developed under the TERRA project employs several types of sensors, including high-resolution RGB cameras as well as hyperspectral imaging, LIDAR and thermal infrared sensors. Together, they can be mounted to on-ground farm machinery or unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to detect plant height, canopy structure, plant architecture, biomass yield and more.
The DOE is interested in the sensing platform to advance sorghum as a feedstock for cellulosic biofuels. The technology is robust enough, however, that it can be used for many other feed, fibre and biofuel crops.
To meet industry needs, Tuinstra and colleagues founded GRYFN, a startup aimed at getting the sensing technology into the hands of companies that can use it in their breeding programs. Its CEO, Matt Bechdol, said the company will connect with plant breeders to demonstrate the benefits of the technology and then use their input to improve the technology so that companies can make the best use of it.
Read the full article on the Milling and Grain website, HERE.
The Global Miller
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