Muhammad Moosa
Research
This project aims to build a national infrastructure for plant phenotyping. Plant phenotyping is the description and characterization of complex plant traits using non-destructive image analysis-based tools. Phenotyping is currently a major bottleneck in plant science, agronomy and plant breeding.
The PheNo infrastructure addresses several priorities in the Strategies for National Bioresource Infrastructure in Norway, including adaptation to climate change, the needs for a green transition and the integration of new technologies, digitalization, automation and robotization. By providing state-of-the-art, unique plant phenotyping facilities to support the needs of research and education in Norway, the PheNo infrastructure will enable faster breeding of new varieties and sustainable production systems adapted to the changing Norwegian climate, based on innovations in genetics, phenomics and the integration of robotics and data science.
Norway will now join several European countries that have established national phenotyping platforms, and PheNo will become a Norwegian node in the European Strategic Forum for Research Infrastructure (ESFRI) roadmap project EMPHASIS (European Infrastructure for multi-scale Plant Phenomics and Simulation for food security in a changing climate) and provide opportunities for phenotyping under the unique Nordic growing conditions at high latitudes.