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Sorghum in the 21st Century: Food – Fodder – Feed – Fuel for a Rapidly Changing World pp 231–249Cite as

High-Throughput Phenotyping Methods for Economic Traits and Designer Plant Types as Tools to Support Modern Breeding Efforts

Abstract

Breeding is evolving toward a much closer integration of high-throughput phenotyping (HTP) tools and technologies, which can target extremely precise measurements of very specific traits. Sorghum breeding is not alien to this evolution, which of course implies majors shifts in how breeding is conducted. First, it implies that breeders include trait assessment to the traditional yield and agronomic evaluation, which implies also that breeding programs open up to new/other disciplines. Second and reversely, it also implies that these new/other disciplines think and conceive their own activities/orientations from the viewpoint of how these could fit into a breeding program. In this paper, we have tried to pave the way of how this evolution could successfully take place. The paper starts with a reflection on the notion of breeding product profile, which is where breeders and other disciplines define the contours of the cultivars they intend to develop, as a product, where end users (households, consumers, farmers, market) have a key input in its intended shape. Then the paper explores four domains in which HTP is currently being integrated in the sorghum breeding process: (1) staygreen and transpiration restriction under high VPD, (2) nodal root angle and depth, (3) mineral grain content (Fe, Zn), and (4) stover and grain quality traits. In each part, we explain the value of the trait and why it is considered by breeders; the HTP method that was developed to phenotype-related traits, in partic3ular how its development took into consideration breeding aspects (cost, throughput, simplicity); and finally how these traits are currently being integrated in the breeding program. The last part of the paper explores several other avenues of technologies that, although not yet routinely implemented, could bring about a major benefit to the breeding program’s efforts to increase the rate of genetic gains. Here, we introduce the use of drone imaging to tackle trial quality and pinpoint plot heterogeneity, the integration of quality analysis into the assessment of agronomic traits in the field, and the use of X-ray spectroscopy to assess grain color, shape, and architecture.

Keywords

  • Drone
  • High-throughput phenotyping
  • Image analysis
  • Remote sensing
  • Root angle
  • Root depth
  • Stover quality traits
  • Transpiration efficiency
  • Vapor pressure deficit
  • Water use

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), UMR DIADE, University of Montpellier, Montpellier Cedex 5, France

    V. Vadez

  2. International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, Telangana, India

    V. Vadez

  3. The University of Queensland, QAAFI, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    E. van Oosterom & V. Singh

  4. International Livestock Research Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    M. Blümmel

  5. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, Telangana, India

    Ashok Kumar Are

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  1. V. Vadez
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  2. E. van Oosterom
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  3. V. Singh
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  4. M. Blümmel
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  5. Ashok Kumar Are
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Correspondence to V. Vadez .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Dr. Vilas A. Tonapi

  2. ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Dr. Harvinder Singh Talwar

  3. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, Telangana, India

    Dr. Ashok Kumar Are

  4. ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Dr. B. Venkatesh Bhat

  5. Formerly, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, Telangana, India

    Dr. Ch. Ravinder Reddy

  6. Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

    Dr. Timothy J. Dalton

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Vadez, V., van Oosterom, E., Singh, V., Blümmel, M., Are, A.K. (2020). High-Throughput Phenotyping Methods for Economic Traits and Designer Plant Types as Tools to Support Modern Breeding Efforts. In: Tonapi, V.A., Talwar, H.S., Are, A.K., Bhat, B.V., Reddy, C.R., Dalton, T.J. (eds) Sorghum in the 21st Century: Food – Fodder – Feed – Fuel for a Rapidly Changing World. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8249-3_10

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