Implication of high variance in germplasm characteristics.

Abstract

The beauty of conserving germplasm is the securement of genetic resources with numerous important traits, which could be utilized whenever they need to be incorporated into current cultivars. However, it would not be as useful as expected if the proper information was not given to breeders and researchers. In this study, we demonstrated that there is a large variation, both among and within germplasm, using a low-cost image-based phenotyping method; this could be valuable for improving gene banks' screening systems and for crop breeding. Using the image analyses of 507 accessions of buckwheat, we identified a wide range of variations per trait between germplasm accessions and within an accession. Since this implies a similarity with other important agronomic traits, we suggest that the variance of the presented traits should be checked and provided for better germplasm enhancement.

Plant phenotyping relevance

低コスト画像ベース表現型解析法を用いて多数のソバ遺伝資源を評価し、遺伝資源スクリーニングへの応用可能性を示すことが中心である。

Code and data availability

The paper's buckwheat seed phenotyping dataset (48,047 samples, 507 accessions) is explicitly not publicly available; it is available only from the corresponding author on reasonable request. No author analysis code, scripts, or trained models are deposited with any public URL; only generic tools (ImageJ, Python, Seab)

No evidence-backed public reproduction asset is currently recorded.