Operations and phenotyping

Digitization survey results announced

In March 2019, EiB surveyed its members to identify the models of equipment currently used to digitize breeding operations.

These include package printers, label printers, barcode readers, electronic data collectors and seed counters that can be used to speed up, standardize and introduce efficiency savings into breeding program operations.

The survey results will be used to guide the outreach agenda of EiB module leaders, while the makes and models of equipment preferred by EiB users are available for reference on the EiB Toolbox.

Breeding program digitization equipment

In March 2019, EiB surveyed its members to identify preferences for models of equipment used to digitize breeding operations. The results are provided below.

Management of drought stress in field phenotyping

In managed drought stress trials, it is critical to achieve the required level of drought at the target crop stage in order to generate high-quality, repeatable trial data.

The three key factors to be taken account are:

Phenotyping for abiotic stress tolerance in maize: drought stress. A field manual

Crop breeding programs using conventional and/or molecular breeding approaches rely heavily on high-quality phenotypic data generated by evaluating genotypes in different environmental conditions, such as drought.

In this manual, the traits of interest for phenotyping are those that mitigate yield losses rather than those involved in the survival or escape of plants exposed to drought stress.

This manual is targeted at maize breeders and field technicians in tropical environments who are working on improving maize tolerance to drought stress.

Phenotyping for abiotic stress tolerance in maize: waterlogging stress. A field manual

Maize crops grown during the summer rainy season in the tropics occasionally face extreme weather conditions that limit crop establishment and yield potential. Among various abiotic stresses, contingent/intermittent soil waterlogging is one of the important constraints for maize production in the Asian tropics and many other maize growing areas around the world.

Guidelines for monitoring stress severity in drought screening trials.

Monitoring soil moisture is critical to understand genotypic performance in yield trials and is then an important factor for data quality.

This tool provides information on theory, protocol, troubleshooting, and equipment needed to undertake a rigorous soil moisture monitoring in your breeding plots.

Operations and phenotyping assessment template

Detailed assessment and planning is required for breeding programs to continuously improve phenotyping operations. These templates have been created to assess and act on potential improvements in the following areas, each of which are further divided into sub-categories:

Gustavo Teixeira

Phenotyping tools and services

Gustavo Teixeira
As breeding operations and phenotyping lead, Gustavo provides expert evaluation of breeding program operations according to continuous improvement and operational excellence methodologies and leads initiatives to improve CGIAR and NARS operations capacities. An expert in agriculture engineering, processes, mechanization and automization, Gustavo has over 15 years’ experience in the private sector including as Automation Manager for R&D in Latin America at Syngenta. Gustavo has an MBA in industrial Management and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

Operations and phenotyping

As of 2022, this work is delivered primarily through CGIAR Initiative on Breeding Resources, Work Packages 3 and 5.

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New mechanization, automation, precision and high-throughput phenotyping tools have the potential to lower the cost of assessing variety traits and genotype-environment-management interactions, while improving accuracy and precision.

The operations and phenotyping module supports Platform members to adopt these new tools to increase the quantity and quality of phenotypic data they produce, and to use this data to improve the effectiveness of their breeding programs.

As a community of practice, the module creates information about tools, guides and best practices to be shared through the platform Toolbox. Expert interdisciplinary advice is shared to enable more rapid and effective adoption of phenotyping tools.

Finally, the module supports users to upgrade and share their phenotyping infrastructure, acts as a broker for approved services, and interfaces with the Bioinformatics module to support the management and use of phenotypic data.

Option box:

Module leader