Harmonisation Pilot
The harmonisation pilot service will evaluate how to establish EMPHASIS as a central point of information on Good Phenotyping Practices developed in close collaboration with the phenotyping community and based on state-of-the-art procedures.
The aim is to develop and communicate with the plant phenotyping community best practices (Good Phenotyping Practice). This will be a prerequisite to allow experimental reproducibility between infrastructures and reusability of the obtained data (e.g., by defining standards). This will include collecting/ defining standards, minimum requirements and guidelines on experimental procedures and the use of equipment.
The aim is to collect minimum requirements for plant phenotyping experiments under controlled and field conditions and guidelines on use and calibration of sensors.
Two tasks have been formulated in this pilot service in the Implementation phase.
1. Outreach
Community exchange on harmonisation
We actively interact with the community via targeted e-mailing of experts, general online outings (social media), workshops and via mailings and webinar announcements.
We are organising workshops and round-table discussions with operators of plant phenotyping facilities and users on Good Phenotyping Practice in all infrastructure categories:
ii) intensive field,
iii) lean field,
iv) data and computational services,
v) modelling
2. Collect information
Requirements for Good Phenotyping Practice are:
- Evaluate and define experimental procedures required to enable comparability of experiments with focus on experimental design and analysis for single and multiple installation experiments, environmental monitoring, sensor calibration and application etc. (including work from EPPN/EPPN2020 and enable access for EMPHASIS members)
- Map, evaluate and offer access to existing repositories hosting plant phenotyping protocols and their accessibility for the user community;
- Develop an EMPHASIS repository integrating information from existing repositories as well as new protocols and quality measures required for Good Phenotyping practice in plant phenotyping.
- Establishment of a processes continuing quality assurance for the Operational Phase of EMPHASIS.
Examples of collected information
Publications on harmonisation
Opinion and general overviews
The following paper discusses the difficulty of defining the stress levels experienced by plants accurately as well as a lack of standardization in the terminology used to describe plant responses to various stresses: Moshelion M (2020) The dichotomy of yield and drought resistance. EMBO Rep 21:e51598, https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.202051598
Poorter et al (2012) Pot size matters: a meta-analysis of the effects of rooting volume on plant growth. Functional Plant Biology, 39, 839–850 also discussed in this webinar