Individual Plant Sensing: Theory, Early Results, and Applications.

Most field crop phenotyping for aboveground traits occurs at the canopy scale of biological organization. Phenotypes are therefore typically measured, analyzed, and/or expressed at the row, plot, strip, management zone, and/or field level. While often very useful and fully sufficient, such approaches generally overlook the value of capturing and analyzing per-plant phenotypic information. Through the application of traditional and modern sensors, airborne and ground-based phenotyping tools, and image analysis methods; it is increasingly possible to phenotype major field crops at the individual plant level. Such technologies and techniques therefore make it possible to capture plant count, plant spacing, and plant-to-plant phenotypic variability information in a relatively high-throughput manner. Such information provides insights into research plot and field quality, field equipment performance, genotype stress tolerance, physiological plasticity, and fine-scale spatial variability. Such information is of interest to field crop breeding and management, precision agriculture, and equipment manufacturing communities. During this presentation, we will further discuss the theory and applications of per-plant phenotypic information. We will also present some early results from an effort seeking to measure individual plant phenotypes and quantify plant-to-plant variability using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs); a mobile ground-based phenotyping platform; RGB, hyperspectral, and LiDAR sensors; ground reference data collection; novel georeferencing techniques; and various image and data analysis methods (e.g., feature extraction, image segmentation). Challenges from phenotyping at the individual plant level using traditional and emerging techniques will also be discussed.