Plant Phenotyping in the Americas, One Year Later

Approximately a year ago, I entered the plant phenotyping arena and in my first blog for our company posed the following question. “Will the US overtake Europe in Advanced Plant Phenotyping?” Admittedly, the question was too narrowly focused and I should have viewed this from a more hemispheric perspective, meaning North and South America, particularly since the efforts in Europe to date have been multi-national.  As I began to summarize my experience over the last year, I started to think about other transitional periods in plant breeding.  A quick search of the web produced the following statement regarding the work of Norman Borlaug: “[His] greatest achievement has been his unending struggle to integrate the various streams of agricultural research into viable technologies and to convince political leaders to bring these advances to fruition.” In the context of plant phenotyping, this statement only partially summarizes the task faced by the discipline today.  At the first symposium I attended, it was apparent to everyone that ...