Are you focusing on plant phenotyping or envirotyping topics in your research and interested in how you can benefit from research infrastructure services in that area?

This TPPJ special issue will be the official peer-reviewed publication associated with the IPPS8. Preference will be given to material presented at the IPPS8, although contributions from the broader plant phenotyping community are welcome.

Submissions open: August 1, 2024

Submission deadline: January 1, 2025

IPPN invites you to join the world's leading conference on plant phenotyping, held in the inspiring environment of the University Nebraska-Lincoln.

Join us & explore the latest advances & innovations in this dynamic research field!

Flyer (PDF)

We are eager to announce the results of the IPPN Board Elections, which took place from December 2023 until January 2024

Toni Kazic and Addie Thompson invite your submissions to a special issue of Agronomy

Target date is April 1, 2024

Special Issue Flyer (PDF)

In order to keep you updated on any upcoming & relevant information in course of the planning activities, IPPN Office makes the following announcement:

IPPS2024 will take place from October 07. – 11. 2024, in Lincoln (Nebraska)

The main objective of this special issue is to present recent developments in affordable phenotyping and trait analysis that have or potentially could lead to valuable biological discoveries in different areas of plant sciences, for either fundamental or applied purposes.

Submission Deadline: November 30, 2024

A Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility (APPF) headquartered at the University of Adelaide and the European Infrastructure for Plant Phenotyping (EMPHASIS) coordinated at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany, has formalised the two organisations’ commitment to cooperate on enabling crop improvement via advancements in plant phenotyping.

The Horizon Europe project AgroServ is pleased to announce the official launch of its first call for proposals open to scientists from academia and/or the industry.

The special issue theme on “Automation for Plant Biodesign” seeks original research manuscripts as well as reviews on new technologies enabling automated plant biodesign research or any component of Design-Build-Test-Learn (DBTL) cycles for plants in lab, greenhouse, or field settings.

This Request for Proposal (RFP) process will source new projects focussed on developing tools and methods to phenotype the traits involved in improving crop resource use-efficiency and unlocking plant potential. A cross-business consultation process was undertaken to identify the highest priority traits for which we need suitable phenomics tools and methods for to deliver GRDC’s aspirations, particularly related to the Reach New Frontiers Pillar.

The Wheat Initiative is proud to present the newly launched Mentorship Programme! The programme will support PhDs and young researchers from regions with limited existing support or capacity (non-OECD countries…) undertaking durum wheat research or planning research focussed on durum wheat. This international contest will foster a supportive professional network for early career researchers, offering access to tutor´s laboratories and collaboration with senior researchers.

CVPPA, held in conjunction with ICCV 2023, aims to advance computer vision for plant and crop applications.

Paper submission deadline: July 21, 2023

Flyer (PDF)

The development of sustainable, resource-efficient phenotyping technologies contributes in the long term to the security of supply of entire regions by technologically supporting, among other things, the optimization of growing conditions or the breeding of new varieties.

Flyer (PDF)

This Research Topic aims to collect selected contributions from attendees and members of the research community of IPPS 2022, the 7th International Plant Phenotyping Symposium, which was held in Wageningen, Netherlands (September 26-30 2022).

Spontaneous submissions are also welcome. 

This SI published by In Sillico Plants  is looking for contributions from research on the integration of phenotyping with genetic, molecular, physiological and ecological data is encouraged.

Flyer (PDF)

DEADLINE APPROACHING: Plant Phenomics is accepting submissions for a special issue titled Plant Functional Phenotyping. 

Develop models to predict corn yield in the 2022 G2F trials based on the current G2F dataset and other publicly available data.

Starting November 15 /2022 - January 15 /2023

Featuring state-of-the-art robotics, remote sensing and data-capturing capabilities, Texas A&M AgriLife Research has launched “the future of agricultural research” with its multi-million dollar Automated Precision Phenotyping Greenhouse on the Texas A&M University.

BBSRC’s recent announcement of a £2.4M UK Plant and Crop Phenotyping Infrastructure Scoping Project,was followed by yesterday’s webinar at which BBSRC colleagues presented its aims and timeline.

As a long term partner of the North American Plant Phenotyping Network (NaPPN) since its beginning, IPPN attended the conference in-person & remotely, adding to the program by hosting an international panel discussion during one of the morning sessions.

Slides: IPPN Panel Discussion @ NaPPN AC (PDF)

After the successful launch of the IPPS2022 registration period, the organizers have decided to extend the deadlines forearly bird registrations until May 1, 2022.

Additionally, the submission period for talks and posters got pushed back to May 15, 2022.

We want to help make phenotyping with drones or unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) more available to the agricultural research community. 

EPSO: Stop war in Ukraine!

Offer support to Ukrainian scientists: You can help!

Registration & abstract submission for the 7th International Plant Phenotyping Symposium (IPPS7) have opened.

Visit www.ipps7.org & stay tuned for even more updates!!

This paper provides an overview of the current status of European field phenotyping capabilities and provides a roadmap for their future use to support crop improvement. This provides a wider framework for the analysis and planning of field phenotyping activities for crop improvement.

 A joint collaboration in frame of the EMPHASIS Field pilot and Experts in the the field.

The authors call for international action and propose a pan-European research and innovation initiative, the CropBooster Program, to mobilize the European plant research community and all interested actors in agri-food research and innovation to face the challenge.

Harbinson et. al. (2021) Designing the Crops for the Future; The CropBooster Program (PDF)

In this competition, you will utilize a dataset consisting of 103,365 performance records over 13 years and 150 locations with weekly weather data for each location throughout the growing season of 30 weeks. In particular, you will develop machine learning algorithms that can accurately predict yearly crop yield for a particular performance record.

In 2021, the Wheat Initiative welcomes Dr. Stefanie Hagemann, as the new AHEAD Global Coordinator. Dr. Hagemann started working for the Julius Kühn-Institute and for the Wheat Initiative this summer.

Press release (PDF)

WHEAT PHENOTYPING & ABIOTIC STRESS TOLERANCE: LATEST APPROACHES & FINDINGS

WHEAT PHENOTYPING AND ABIOTIC STRESS TOLERANCE: FROM THE BENCH TO THE FIELD, FROM VISUAL SCORES TO ROBOTICS

Plant Phenomics, a Science Partner Journal, is now accepting submissions for a special issue titled Advances in Proximal Sensing and Image Analysis for Time-Series Phenotyping.

Submission Deadline: June 30, 2023

As decided by the IPPN Executive Board, this year’s IPPN General Assembly will be held virtually. The decision was based on the still prevalent national & international COVID-19 restrictions for meetings & travelling. In order to give each member representative near-equal opportunities to attend this mandatory meeting, an exact time will be announced later this year.

The PHENOPlant phenotyping platform is designed for non-invasive, morphometric and physiological high-throughput phenotyping of mid-size crop plants as well as Arabidopsis and is fully integrated into a state-of-the-art walk-in phytotron providing highly homogeneous plant growth conditions. The platform facilitates precise environmental simulations across different climate zones as well as controlled plant stress experiments. Cutting-edge sensors include multi-excitation PAM kinetic chlorophyll fluorescence, RGB, VNIR/SWIR hyperspectral, thermal and 3D.

The EPPN²⁰²⁰ project has provided transnational access for researchers from public and private sectors from Europe and beyond to 31 state-of-the-art plant phenotyping installations, techniques and methods from 15 different institutions across Europe. Calls for transnational access to these installations were released at regular intervals between 2018 and 2021, and the sixth and final call has now closed. Throughout the project period 198 applications were submitted and based on external and independent review process 152 transnational access experiments were successfully implemented.

Early stage Verticillium Wilt affected trees

Verticillium wilt is a major problem for olive growth and very difficult to detect at early stages of infestation. The project MyOliveGroveCoach has been launched to develop an intelligent system that will monitor olive groves and support farmers in the detection and treatment of Verticillium. The system employs multispectral imaging from unmanned aerial vehicles and automatic image processing using computer vision and machine learning techniques. The goal is to assess the health of olive groves and provide novel solutions for the early detection of Verticillium wilt and its spread.

On 27 May 2021, NordPlant organized a virtual tour of the Biotron at SLU Alnarp. The Biotron is a facility for modern plant research with climatized rooms, with high precision and accuracy climates. One purpose of this tour was to fulfill NordPlants mission to spread information about the participating facilities. Another was to continue building the Facility Managers Network, which is intended to let the staff who work at the different facilities learn more about other facilities in the network.

The Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania, the Hellenic Agricultural Organization Dimitra and QCELL, the inventor of field-deployable, real-time multispectral imaging technology, have joined forces to expand the applications of multi-spectral imaging in plant phenotyping. The SpectraPlant project supported by the Region of Crete and the Hellenic Ministry of Development and Investment uses the PhenoCheck lab-in-the-field device from QCELL to collect and classify spectral data for the early diagnosis of stress and pathological conditions in economically important crops. 

Three new data management tools designed to help plant researchers with data analysis, visualisation and integration following FAIR principles are now available for the community.

The Italian Plant Phenotyping Network Phen-Italy has launched a call to fund access to plant phenotyping participating infrastructures within the Joint Research Unit Phen-Italy.

After careful deliberation and consideration of the global status of the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, the IPPN Executive Board has taken the decision to postpone its 7th International Plant Phenotyping Symposium (IPPS7) to 2022.

Update: The IPPS7 organizing committee has published the exact date to which IPPS7 will be shifted, which is which is Tuesday September 27^th till Friday September 30^th 2022. 

Now open: abstract submission for the upcoming season of the newly revised PhenomicsWebinars series on plant phenotyping.

Contributions to the special issue are welcome and may include research papers as well as review articles. Authors should submit a title and brief outline for the consideration of the editors via email by 31 October 2021. All papers are peer reviewed to the usual standards and must fit within the scope of the journal.

Your input is needed: the German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure de.NBI would really appreciate if you could take a couple of minutes to answer five short questions here.

A major goal of the Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative (AG2PI) is to bring together agricultural scientists across disciplines to work together in addressing shared challenges in genome-to-phenome. As such, we have launched a seed grant program to foster first steps towards the development of community solutions to research needs and opportunities, as well as gaps in physical infrastructure and data management.

IPPN member AgResearch (New Zealand) kicks-off new Special Issue in "plants". This Special Issue aims to bring together a range of research papers that cover plant phenotyping at large-scale from hundreds of genotypes using simple and repeatable technology to small-scale using high-tech and accurate methods and anything in between.

VIB, a leading life sciences institute in Flanders, has signed an agreement with BASF to acquire its CropDesign site in Nevele, Belgium. VIB and CropDesign have had a close scientific relationship for more than 15 years. CropDesign, currently part of BASF’s Agricultural Solutions division, was established in 1998 as a VIB spinoff and has grown into a biotech company specializing in plant phenotyping technology. The divesture includes site infrastructure and intellectual property. All former CropDesign employees found new jobs within or outside BASF.

The SUSWHEAT project combines globally leading research expertise on wheat from complementary teams at Copenhagen and Aarhus University, China and the UK, creating a strong partnership to dissect the resilience mechanisms in response to future climate. The collaborative project has recently been granted funding from the Independent Research Fund Denmark.

In early 2021, Phen-Italy (the Italian Network of Plant Phenotyping Infrastructures) will launch the first call for access to the national plant phenotyping infrastructures. The applicants are requested to submit a project proposal aiming at answering a clear scientific question and/or addressing a technological challenge in the field of plant phenotyping. The project proposals will be evaluated by a Commission of independent experts. More information will be circulated in January 2021 on www.phen-Italy.it.

The gantries will allow multispectral imaging, 3D scanning and high-resolution thermal imaging of plants as well as a combination of multispectral- and thermal imaging with gravimetric phenotyping to study plant water household.

The plant research community in Norway has joined forces and submitted a national infrastructure proposal to establish the Norwegian Plant Phenotyping Platform (PheNo).

The University of Barcelona in partnership with the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) are developing a smartphone-based, user-friendly application for smallholder farmers from the MENA region (Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia) and United Arab Emirates (UAE) aiming to identify major biotic and abiotic stresses in key relevant herbaceous crops.

In a landmark discovery for global wheat production, an international team has sequenced the genomes for 15 wheat varieties representing breeding programmes from around the world.

Press release (PDF)

University College Dublin (UCD-Ireland) has acquired a PlantScreen system from Photon System Instruments (PSI) with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland Future Research Leaders Programme (SFI-FRL) awarded to Dr. Sónia Negrão.

Plant phenomics is helping optimise biotechnology for plant-based vaccine development in a new research collaboration between Australia’s Australian National University (ANU) and Canadian biopharmaceutical company, Medicago R&D Inc.

Press release (PDF)

For the past six years, IPPN and EMPHASIS have carried out their bi-annual "Plant Phenotyping Surveys". They cover basic and advanced questions related to plant phenotyping for the purpose of assessing the status of global plant phenotyping and emerging fields. The surveys address participants from all geographic regions and in all professional disciplines in any way related to plant phenotyping.

The new website of the International Bioeconomy Forum (IBF) is now online. The IBF was launched in 2016 by the European Commission and provides a platform for international communication and cooperation regarding the development of a sustainable bioeconomy. Members are the European Commission, Argentina, Canada, China, India, New Zealand, South Africa and USA.

We are excited to present the EMPHASIS Scribble Series: three short animated videos produced in scribble style illustrate the basic concepts of research infrastructures, why we do plant phenotyping and what EMPHASIS is all about.

Earlier this year, EMPHASIS has reached an important milestone: the establishment of the Interim General Assembly (IGA), a board of ten countries that have formally declared their intention of moving EMPHASIS towards operation. 

We are constantly striving to improve our webinar series and would very much appreciate your feedback.

The French infrastructure Phenome Emphasis has been officially prolonged until 2025, with an extra funding of EUR 5 million.

The Nordic network NordPlant has been prolonged until 2023 with funding from NordForsk.

This year’s CVPPP was held alongside the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) on Friday 28 August online.

The Nordic Plant Phenotyping field day that was held here at NMBU on 17 June. This is an annual get-together for plant breeders and scientists in the Nordic countries to get in touch with field phenotyping activities and learn about the latest development.

Leading Agricultural Research Software company teams with fast-growing startup on integrating outputs from its unique image stitching and data extraction application for images from Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS, also referred to as UAVs).

Interdrought 2020, organized by CIMMYT and the University of Queensland, was scheduled to take place in Mexico City in March 2020. As it was not possible to proceed with face-to-face meetings due to the travel restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizing committee delivered the scientific program online.

EPPN2020 has just launched its sixth call for application for transnational access, open to European groups but also open (to a limited extent) to groups originating from emerging countries or international research centers. The call closes on 26th of October 2020.

To compensate for the cancellation of many scientific conferences and opportunities to discuss latest developments in the field, the plant phenotyping initiatives IPPN, EPPN2020 and EMPHASIS are launching a webinar series on plant phenotyping. We are looking for contributions from researchers from all phenotyping-related fields.

It’s competition time: EMPHASIS is launching a photo competition in plant phenotyping in collaboration with IPPN and sponsored by LemnaTech and DPPN. Send us your best plant phenotyping photos and be in for a chance of winning a high-end camera!

Plant Phenomics is pleased to announce a special issue on Statistics, Bioinformatics, and Machine Learning Methods in Phenomics.

Submission Deadline: April 1st, 2020

PLOS ONE is calling for papers on plant phenomics and precision agriculture research. The deadline for submission is 5 June 2020.