Infra-Red Thermography as a High-Throughput Tool for Field Phenotyping

Abstract

Abstract:The improvements in crop production needed to meet the increasing food demand in the 21st Century will rely on improved crop management and better crop varieties. In the last decade our ability to use genetics and genomics in crop science has been revolutionised, but these advances have not been matched by our ability to phenotype crops. As rapid and effective phenotyping is the basis of any large genetic study, there is an urgent need to utilise the recent advances in crop scale imaging to develop robust high-throughput phenotyping. This review discusses the use and adaptation of infra-red thermography (IRT) on crops as a phenotyping resource for both biotic and abiotic stresses. In particular, it addresses the complications caused by external factors such as environmental fluctuations and the difficulties caused by mixed pixels in the interpretation of IRT data and their effects on sensitivity and reproducibility for the detection of different stresses. Further, it highlights the improvements needed in using this technique for quantification of genetic variation and its integration with multiple sensor technology for development as a high-throughput and precise phenotyping approach for future crop breeding.

Diurnal Dynamics of Wheat Evapotranspiration Derived from Ground-Based Thermal Imagery

“…Thus, a generalization of observed temperatures and model results is strongly limited. On the other hand, such genotype-specific characteristics allow for using thermal imagery as a tool for observing plant response to stress as part of non-invasive phenotyping approaches [96]. Results from our study contribute to the overall understanding of evapotranspiration model behavior for variable cloud cover conditions, when parameterized with remotely sensed surface temperatures.…”

High Throughput Field Phenotyping of Wheat Plant Height and Growth Rate in Field Plot Trials Using UAV Based Remote Sensing

“…It will also look to develop methods using other imaging equipment such as multi-spectral [50][51][52], hyper-spectral [35] and thermal cameras [53,54] to provide information beyond just plant height and growth rate. This should help to open up the opportunity to collect a more complete set of crop phenotype metrics at a spatial and temporal resolution usually unavailable to plant scientists, offering greater insights into varieties behaviours and adaptability under different growing conditions.…”

Low-altitude, high-resolution aerial imaging systems for row and field crop phenotyping: A review

“…In the last 20 years, advances in DNA sequencing and molecular technologies has significantly improved knowledge of plant genomes; however, current methods to phenotype crops remain slow, expensive, labor-intensive, and often destructive (Furbank and Tester, 2011;Walter et al, 2012;White et al, 2012;Cobb et al, 2013;Dhondt et al, 2013;Fiorani and Schurr, 2013;Araus and Cairns, 2014). Since 2010, rapid high-throughput crop phenotyping methods or 'phenomics' have been discussed as an approach that could significantly improve phenotyping efforts for plant breeding (Furbank and Tester, 2011;Walter et al, 2012;White et al, 2012;Cabrera-Bosquet et al, 2012;Dhondt et al, 2013;Fiorani and Schurr, 2013;Yang et al, 2013;Cobb et al, 2013;Araus and Cairns, 2014;Prashar and Jones, 2014;Deery et al, 2014). These techniques include the application of fluorescence sensing for estimating photosynthesis (Baker, 2008;Munns et al, 2010;Tuberosa, 2012), visible imaging for shoot biomass estimation (Berger et al, 2010;Golzarian et al, 2011), visible-near infrared spectroscopy for identifying physiological changes induced by water and nutrient stresses (Peñuelas et al, 1994;van Maarschalkerweerd et al, 2013), and thermal imaging for detecting water stress (Jones et al, 2009).…”