Exploiting novel canopy sensors for improved disease management, variety selection, and resilience in wheat

Commercial production of wheat crops in the UK is currently highly dependent on timely applications of fungicides to optimise yield and the development of improved varieties by plant breeders with resilience to diseases and abiotic stresses. With recent advances in genetic marker technology, the bottleneck in predictive agronomy and wheat breeding is now in the ability to conduct field-based discovery and evaluation of traits (phenotyping) which are currently laborious, time consuming and inefficient. The project will develop canopy sensor phenomics platforms, based on chlorophyll fluorescence and hyperspectral imaging systems, which will allow a high throughput and detailed evaluation of crop performance (i.e., early detection of biotic and abiotic stress). The high-throughput canopy sensors (ground-based and aerial) will be tested as decision tools and provide a step change in the efficiency of wheat predictive agronomy and breeding and a basis for improving wheat for UK farmers.