High-throughput phenotyping: Breaking through the bottleneck in future crop breeding

With the rapid development of genetic analysis techniques and crop population size, phenotyping has become the bottleneck restricting crop breeding. Breaking through this bottleneck will require phenomics, defined as the accurate, high-throughput acquisition and analysis of multi-dimensional phenotypes during crop growth at organism-wide levels, ranging from cells to organs, individual plants, plots, and fields. Here we offer an overview of crop phenomics research from technological and platform viewpoints at various scales, including microscopic, ground-based, and aerial phenotyping and phenotypic data analysis. We describe recent applications of high-throughput phenotyping platforms for abiotic/biotic stress and yield assessment. Finally, we discuss current challenges and offer perspectives on future phenomics research. (C) 2021 Crop Science Society of China and Institute of Crop Science, CAAS. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.

Automated summary

With the rapid development of genetic analysis techniques and crop population size, phenotyping has become the bottleneck restricting crop breeding. Breakthrough in this area requires phenomics, accurate and high-throughput acquisition and analysis of multi-dimensional phenotypes at different levels. High-throughput phenotyping platforms have shown promising applications in stress response and yield assessment, but there are still challenges to be addressed.