Advanced phenotyping techniques in sunflower breeding

Abstract

Breeding and phenotyping of sunflower are mainly based on traditional methodologies that are generally time-consuming, labor-intensive, prone to errors in the sampling, and with, in some cases, biased nature of the evaluation results. However, over the past decade, plant phenomics has made impressive progress in developing sensors and imaging techniques for a wide range of crop traits, organs and incidences. They enabled direct or indirect monitoring of growth and development, recording of architecture and helped evaluate resilience and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. In IFVCNS, there were several successful attempts to use advanced phenotyping techniques in the identification and determination of desirable traits in sunflower. Using Flower Color Image Analysis (FloCIA) software, enhanced ray florets color determination and paved the way to more objective and accurate sunflower phenotyping, while thermal imaging was used for screening of sunflower for tolerance to Sclerotinia head and stem rot.