Can High Throughput Phenotyping Help Food Security in the Mediterranean Area?

Area of Science:

• Agricultural Science
• Plant Physiology
• Climate Change Adaptation

Background:

• The Mediterranean region faces severe climate change impacts, threatening food production for 500 million people.
• Agriculture's high water consumption (70% globally) is challenged by reduced rainfall and increased irrigation costs, impacting food security.
• Developing climate-smart agriculture is crucial for sustainable productivity increases.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify durum wheat genotypes resilient to water stress for future breeding.
• To evaluate biostimulants for enhancing tomato water use capacity.
• To apply high-throughput phenotyping (HTP) for efficient trait assessment.

Main Methods:

• Utilized high-throughput phenotyping (HTP) for non-destructive, non-invasive trait measurement.
• Measured digital biovolume using RGB imaging techniques.
• Calculated Water Use Efficiency (WUE) index semi-automatically via evaporation measurements.

Main Results:

• HTP effectively discriminated between durum wheat genotypes and tomato biostimulant treatments.
• Identified specific genotypes and treatments that enhance plant soil water utilization efficiency.
• Demonstrated the scalability of RGB imaging-based phenotyping for field applications using USVs or UAVs.

Conclusions:

• HTP offers a rapid, accurate method for assessing crop water use efficiency.
• Findings support breeding for drought-resilient crops and developing treatments to improve water management in agriculture.
• RGB imaging-based HTP is a promising tool for large-scale field phenotyping in climate-smart agriculture.