Abstract
Genetically diverse plant germplasm stored in ex-situ genebanks are excellent resources for breeding new high yielding and sustainable crop varieties to ensure future food security. Novel alleles have been discovered through routine genebank activities such as seed regeneration and characterization, with subsequent utilization providing significant genetic gains and improvements for the selection of favorable traits, including yield, biotic, and abiotic resistance. Although some genebanks have implemented cost-effective genotyping technologies through advances in DNA technology, the adoption of modern phenotyping is lagging. The introduction of advanced phenotyping technologies in recent decades has provided genebank scientists with time and cost-effective screening tools to obtain valuable phenotypic data for more traits on large germplasm collections during routine activities. The utilization of these phenotyping tools, coupled with high-throughput genotyping, will accelerate the use of genetic resources and fast-track the development of more resilient food crops for the future. In this review, we highlight current digital phenotyping methods that can capture traits during annual seed regeneration to enrich genebank phenotypic datasets. Next, we describe strategies for the collection and use of phenotypic data of specific traits for downstream research using high-throughput phenotyping technology. Finally, we examine the challenges and future perspectives of genebank phenomics.
Highlights
The global population is forecasted to reach 9.6 billion people by 2050, with the current 1.3%annual growth rate of crop productivity required to increase to 2.4% to meet the expected food security needs [1]
Highly heritable traits in cereals such as spike length, spike weight, and floret number per spike are indicators of agronomic values, yield, and adaptation for selection schemes [146]. These traits can be quantitatively measured on large-scale seed regeneration trials by using cost-effective High-throughput phenotyping (HTP) technology (Table 1)
HTP phenotyping of genebank germplasm will provide valuable information for end-users, the associated cost for purchasing, establishing, and operating of sensors, phenotyping platforms, analysis, validation, and making available phenotypic data in a searchable online platform, respectively, is not a trivial task, and might not be affordable by every genebank [164,165]
Summary
The global population is forecasted to reach 9.6 billion people by 2050, with the current 1.3%. Since standard genebank characterization practices can be expensive and time-consuming, a strategic cost-effective approach for simultaneously collecting multiple phenotypic trait data from genebank accessions during routine annual seed regenerations is essential to efficiently collect this valuable data and provide it to end-users [7,23,24] This phenotypic data can be readily available for use in combination with genotypic information in subsequent genomic studies and breeding purposes [19,25]. There are numerous HTP methods, we limit our discussions to those that are more applicable to characterize and evaluate genebank germplasm in accordance with the international crop descriptors
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