PhenoMix: Multidimensional field phenotyping of crop mixtures
Motivation
Today, the main crops are grown as pure stands. However, this bears a number of challenges, like high pesticide demand or declining biodiversity. Despite known benefits, growing two or more species together on the same field at the same time is not a widespread management practice. One main reason is the lack of knowledge on suitable combinations of varieties of crop species in different environments. State-of-the-art technologies and applications such as imaging technology, artificial intelligence and stable isotope analyses hold the potential to improve our understanding of crop x environment interactions. The project results will thus inform the improvement of crop mixtures and the transition towards a more sustainable agriculture.
Objectives
PhenoMix has different Work Packages and aims to address multiple aspects of agroecologically beneficial legume-ceral crop mixtures in the field, namely different varieties of pea and lentil as well as wheat, oat and barley grown under an experimental field phenotyping platform and on a neighbouring field. In our Work Package, we aim to
- Quantify abiotic environment and resource supply,
- Assess light and space resource use,
- Assess nitrogen and water resource use,
- Identify mixture effects on plant ecophysiology and ecosystem services, and
- Evaluate plant phenotyping models.