High Throughput Phenotyping Strategies for Cotton.

Over the last two decades, genotyping technologies have advanced rapidly and outpaced researchers’ abilities to phenotype and manage bioinformatic information.  Attention is now being focused on strategies to rapidly phenotype crops. At Texas A&M University, we have evaluated leaf temperature, NDVI, digital imagery, chlorophyll meters, and stomatal conductance in relation to response to drought stress on cotton. Leaf temperature, digital imagery and NDVI can readily be transferred to high throughput platforms, whereas chlorophyll meters and especially stomatal conductance are not easily adaptable. There are potential benefits of these strategies to improve efficiencies in plant breeding, and they likely have several applications that growers could use to enhance decisions related to crop management.