Netherlands
Website: https://www.npec.nl/
The importance of plants for our future
Plants are absolutely essential to our future, where almost all our food, feed, and materials will be derived from plants. Our aim is to enable the development of novel adaptive crops and cropping systems required for future food production and food security without harming the planet.
Our plant phenotyping facilities will help meet the world’s future needs in terms of food and material security — one of the most exciting scientific endeavours for the future.
Plant phenotyping: A game changer
Plant phenotyping is the game changer that will make food security achievable and sustainable agriculture possible.
NPEC offers high-throughput and high-resolution data from plants, both above and below ground. Automatic phenotyping will dramatically increase the speed of plant breeding, significantly reducing the time to market for novel crop varieties.
Advanced capabilities and research focus
NPEC enables accurate, large-scale studies of plant performance in relation to both biotic factors (microbiome interactions, competition, disease) and abiotic factors (light, nutrients, temperature, moisture, soil pH, and atmospheric CO₂). These analyses can be carried out across multiple scales, from controlled environments to realistic growth conditions.
A national collaboration
NPEC is a joint initiative of Wageningen University & Research and Utrecht University. This integrated, national research facility is housed by both universities and co-funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).
More Community members
Austria
APPN brings together Austria’s plant phenotyping community; researchers, breeders, data scientists, technology developers to build shared infrastructure and methods, promote collaboration, and raise the profile of phenotyping nationally and in Europe
Belgium
EMPHASIS-Belgium, the national node located in the host country for EMPHASIS-ERIC, takes a collaborative and service-oriented approach around multiscale plant phenotyping in Belgium via cutting-edge facilities, access provision and community engagement.
France
Phenome-Emphasis develops and provides access to a series of highly skilled indoor and field platforms while supporting tissue biochemistry, image analysis and data management services. These multi-scales evaluation of collections of genotypes across…
Ireland
Irish agriculture is a cornerstone, driving crop yield and disease research. PPN-Ireland (2016), an SFI-supported network, links eight institutes with major phenotyping investments. Teagasc phenotypes diverse crops across all environments, integrating…
Israel
More information coming soon.
Italy
The Italian Plant Phenotyping Network – PHEN-ITALY is a Joint Research Unit (JRU) composed of 18 partners whose mission is to promote, coordinate and facilitate the participation of the scientific community to national research on plant phenotyping, also…
Norway
PheNo provides a distributed national infrastructure across Norway for high-resolution controlled environment, field and seed phenotyping and data analysis services to support research and educational needs in academia and industry.
Portugal
Under EMPHASIS.PT, Portugal has established a cohesive plant phenotyping community. This network joins leading universities, research institutes, and collaborative labs from mainland Portugal and Madeira, ensuring a wide territorial coverage. The…
Switzerland
The research themes of the SPPN cover a wide range, from fundamental ecological and biological research using model plants and crops, to applied research in field and orchard crops. Plant phenotyping infrastructure is available at the landscape, field and…
United Kingdom
PhenomUK comprises 15 research centres and universities housing controlled and field environment platforms organised into 8 targeted clusters: photophysiology, 3D and growth, health and disease, protected environments, drones, deep field, advancing…