Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), along with its partners, will use aerial and ground-based platforms to identify traits required for greater production yield and resistance to drought and salinity stresses to accelerate sorghum breeding for biofuel production. The project will combine plant analysis in both outdoor field and indoor greenhouse environments as each provides unique advantages; and will use robotics and imaging platforms for increased speed and accuracy of data collection. Traditionally aboveground biomass is measured by harvesting, drying, and weighing the plant material. As an alternative approach, the team will develop non-destructive high-throughput methods to measure biomass over time. Drought tolerance will be measured by mapping water stress and using sensors to compare the difference between the canopy temperature and air temperature. The overall goal of the project is to understand the traits related to increasing biomass yield and drought/salinity stress, and to predict those traits in the early stages of plant development, before those traits become apparent using current methods.

If successful, the PNNL team will develop an integrated phenotyping solution to accelerate bioenergy plant breeding by identifying the traits needed to yield greater amounts of biomass from plants able to withstand greater environmental stress.