UAV-Based Phenotyping: A Non-Destructive Approach to Studying Wheat Growth Patterns for Crop Improvement and Breeding Programs

Abstract

Rising food demands require new techniques to achieve higher genetic gains for crop production, especially in regions where climate can negatively affect agriculture. Wheat is a staple crop that often encounters this challenge, and ideotype breeding with optimized canopy traits for grain yield, such as determinate tillering, synchronized flowering, and stay-green (SG), can potentially improve yield under terminal drought conditions. Among these traits, SG has emerged as a key factor for improving grain quality and yield by prolonging photosynthetic activity during reproductive stages. This study aims to highlight the importance of growth dynamics in a wheat mapping population by using multispectral images obtained from uncrewed aerial vehicles as a high-throughput phenotyping technique to assess the effectiveness of using such images for determining correlations between vegetation indices and grain yield, particularly regarding the SG trait. Results show that the determinate group exhibited a positive correlation between NDVI and grain yield, indicating the effectiveness of these traits in yield improvement. In contrast, the indeterminate group, characterized by excessive vegetative growth, showed no significant NDVI–grain yield relationship, suggesting that NDVI values in this group were influenced by sterile tillers rather than contributing to yield. These findings provide valuable insights for crop breeders by offering a non-destructive approach to enhancing genetic gains through the improved selection of resilient wheat genotypes.

Plant phenotyping relevance

UAVマルチスペクトル画像を用いた高スループット表現型解析が研究の中心で、NDVIと小麦の生育・stay-green特性および収量との関係を評価しているため。

Code and data availability

The paper describes UAV multispectral phenotyping of a wheat RIL population, but no blocks contain any public phenotype dataset, image deposit, author analysis code, or supplement with an availability statement. Agisoft Metashape is only a commercial software tool used for processing, not a paper-specific asset.

No evidence-backed public reproduction asset is currently recorded.