Plant phenotyping - bridging the gap from genome to phenotype

The competitiveness of German plant and agricultural research is an important goal of the BMBF's high-tech strategy, in order to contribute to solve global challenges of securing the world's food supply. Increased yields, improved quality and resource efficiency can be achieved primarily by improving crops.

In recent years, great progress has been made in all areas of plant research and plant breeding, from genomics and proteomics to metabolomics. The current bottleneck is the interaction of genetic traits and environmental parameters, which determine the phenotype of plants in their temporal-spatial sequence during the life cycle. A faster and more precise measurement of phenotypes of plant varieties with different genetic traits under different (environmental) conditions (from laboratory to the field), is essential for gaining knowledge in plant research. Phenotyping paves the way to the currently limiting bridge from genome to phenotype and thus to plant performance in production.