Infra-Red Thermography as a High-Throughput Tool for Field Phenotyping

The improvements in crop production needed to meet the increasing food demand in the 21st Century will rely on improved crop management and better crop varieties. In the last decade our ability to use genetics and genomics in crop science has been revolutionised, but these advances have not been matched by our ability to phenotype crops. As rapid and effective phenotyping is the basis of any large genetic study, there is an urgent need to utilise the recent advances in crop scale imaging to develop robust high-throughput phenotyping. This review discusses the use and adaptation of infra-red thermography (IRT) on crops as a phenotyping resource for both biotic and abiotic stresses. In particular, it addresses the complications caused by external factors such as environmental fluctuations and the difficulties caused by mixed pixels in the interpretation of IRT data and their effects on sensitivity and reproducibility for the detection of different stresses. Further, it highlights the improvements needed in using this technique for quantification of genetic variation and its integration with multiple sensor technology for development as a high-throughput and precise phenotyping approach for future crop breeding.