1. Advances in below and above-ground phenotyping
More, Better, Faster, Cheaper:  practical needs for improving the rate of genetic gain
Advances in below and above-ground phenotyping
Vincent Vadez & Team
ICRISAT
Global Goods – Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
29 Oct 2014

2. Lysimetric facility at ICRISAT
Functionality
Morphology
Limitations / Challenges:
Capacity/automation (load cells)
3-D in-situ
Strengths:
Water use efficiency
Water extraction at key times
Shift in how we look at roots
Kinetics of water uptake
2800 “small” PVC / 1600 “large” PVC

3. Variation for water use efficiency
Functionality
Sorghum
Pearl millet
Huge genetic variation
Variants used in breeding
See Vadez et al 2014

4. Water extraction at key times
Trait dissection
Possible
Field applications
Vegetative
Reprod/ Grain fill
Early vigor (RGB / NDVI)
Conductance
Canopy area
Canopy T°C
Staygreen
Sensitive
Tolerant
Infra Red imaging
Less water extraction at vegetative stage, more for grain filling
Zaman-Allah et al 2011
See Borrell et al 2014
See Vadez et al 2013
From Deery et al 2014
See Prashar et al 2013

5. Leaf canopy area and conductance
LeasyScan at ICRISAT
Capacity: 4,800 plots
Throughput: 2,400 plots/hour
Traits: LA, Height, Leaf angle, …

6. Leaf area response to environmental conditions
Leaf canopy area
Possible
Field applications
Trait dissection
Leaf elongation rate
Atmospheric drought
Soil drought
Lidar scanning
TºC + RH %
Leaf area
Water
use
Wind + Light
Leaf area
Leaf area response to environmental conditions
From Deery et al 2014
From Welcker et al 2014
See Chapuis et al 2012

7. Leaf canopy conductance
Load Cells
Limitations / challenges:
Load cells capacity
Data management / analysis
Strengths:
Throughput
Meta-data
Canopy Scanning
+ plant transpiration
= live water budget

8. Leaf canopy response to VPD
Possible
Field applications
Trait dissection
0.005
0.01
0.015
0.02
0.025
0.03
0.035
0.04
0.045
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
Evaporative demand (VPD)
H77/
PRLT-2/89-33
Canopy conductance
Infra Red imaging
Terminal drought
sensitive
Water saving
Terminal drought
tolerant
Root anatomy
Same in pearl millet: genotypic differences in the Transpiration response to VPD exist and relates well to tolerance/sensitivity to terminal drought
Modulate conductance
Decrease TR at high VPD
Canopy TºC
Link to root anatomical differences
From Araus and Cairns 2014
From Burton et al 2012

9. Crop simulation of trait effect on yield
Traits targeted to specific zones
Chose test locations
Here we modified the sowing density in the model and predicted yield for rainfed conditions.
The maps represent the yield change (yield at 40 plant/m2 minus yield at 20 plants/m2)
The results for WCA shows very clearly that there would be a very large yield benefit of increasing the sowing rate from 20 to 40 plant/m2.
Benefit would be small (up to 0.25 t/ha) only in North latitudes (14 and 15 degres North), where there is actually little peanut grown.
We could recommend density trials for key locations where benefit are expected to be high
Grain yield (g m-2)
See Sinclair et al 2010
See Cooper et al 2014

10. Linking-up the pieces Thank you Trait variability Crop Simulation
(Validation)
Multi-location
testing
Trait dissection
0.005
0.01
0.015
0.02
0.025
0.03
0.035
0.04
0.045
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
Evaporative demand (VPD)
Canopy conductance
Genomics
(Genetics)
Field phenotyping
See Cooper et al 2014
See Lynch et al 2014
See Granier et al 2014
Thank you
See Cobb et al 2013