Phenotyping at Plant and Cell Levels: The Quest for Tolerant Crop Development, volume III

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Agriculture currently encounters significant challenges because of climate change, with irregular weather patterns, extended droughts, more frequent heat waves and flooding situations, leading to the emergence of novel pests, diseases and abiotic stresses. Varieties that can withstand environmental stresses and be more efficient in the use of inputs (e.g., water, nutrients) are essential to achieve sustainable food production. Phenotyping approaches, in combination with genomic information, provide plant breeders with a comprehensive understanding of plant behavior and its interaction with the environment. The convergence of advanced sensor technologies, artificial intelligence, and high-throughput analytical methods, with established genomics and physiology knowledge, is transforming plant breeding by improving plant trait discovery. This opens opportunities to understand the complex genotype-phenotype relationships on a large spatial and time scale. By non-destructively measuring growth patterns, morphology, and stress resilience over time, phenotyping helps identify resilient plants with superior traits, crucial to ensure global food security and promote sustainability in agricultural production.

This Research Topic aims to summarize the major constraints (such as data integration, phenotyping costs, and lab-to-field transition issues) and highlight emerging technologies (including plant wearables, biochemical sensors, and advanced satellite imagery) in high-throughput plant phenotyping at the molecular, whole-plant, and field levels, with emphasis on crop selection and breeding. At the same time, one of the goals is to address how novel data science tools and technologies such as proximal and remote sensing, robotics, cloud computing, and AI are advancing crop selection and breeding. This Research Topic also aims to examine the role that high-throughput plant phenotyping may play in the conservation and economic valorization of landraces and wild relatives in addition to assessing social impacts, determine whether costs are justified, and propose necessary changes (such as affordable phenotyping methods) to improve technological effectiveness.

This Research Topic invites the submission of Review, Opinion, and Original Research articles from diverse agricultural disciplines such as agronomy, plant breeding, horticulture, forestry or sensor technologies. Submissions should focus on the application of innovative phenotyping technologies at the plant or cellular level to identify tolerant or resistant varieties and to explore underlying mechanisms.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Climate-Resilient Crop Varieties, Genotype by Environment Interaction, High-Throughput Plant Phenotyping, Plant Breeding for Abiotic and Biotic Stress, Crop Sensing and Stress Phenotyping

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.