The global demand for food, particularly in Africa, is projected to surge in the coming decades due to a confluence of factors including population growth, global shocks, shifting food consumption patterns, and climate change. Projections indicate that climate change is predicted to increase the frequency, severity, and intensity of unpredictable weather phenomena characterized by erratic rainfall, extreme temperature, heightened pest pressures, and exacerbated resource limitations. These multifaceted challenges will significantly impact crop growth and agricultural productivity making traditional agricultural production and farming methods and practices insufficient in sustaining resilience and mitigating the effects of climate change.
The imperative for developing innovative agricultural technologies that could help improve climate resilience and mitigation efforts and crop yields under evolving climatic conditions has become paramount in establishing sustainable agri-food systems. The rapid advances in agriculture knowledge, coupled with diagnosis tools leveraging cutting-edge methodologies such as high-throughput phenotyping for comprehensive characterization of plant responses to diverse stresses, are pivotal in modernizing and accelerating genetic enhancements of crops. Using digital approaches, such as plant phenotyping, provides means for real-time monitoring of response to environmental stresses and nutrition, and aids in unraveling the relationships between yield and complex genotypic traits. Accelerated testing, selection, and development of resilient plant germplasm to major biotic and abiotic stressors such as drought, high temperatures, pests, diseases, and nutrient deficiency emerge as fundamental strategies for boosting climate change mitigation efforts.
Plant phenotyping has recently emerged as a crucial tool for characterizing a wide array of plant traits, processes, functions, and structures, primarily through non-destructive optical analyses of plant traits captured in images. These traits are shaped by the interplay between the organism’s genetic makeup (genotype) and the external environment in which it grows and develops.
By Pr. Moez Amri & Pr. Michel Ghanem
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