Strategies and high-throughput platforms for phenotyping (HTP) are needed to enable genome-wide association studies and the formulation of genomic selection models in plant breeding. The complete set of genetic factors that contribute to quantitative phenotypic variation through cells, organs and tissues, developmental stages in time, environments and species must be encapsulated within a framework that unifies information, so that it is manipulable in common discourse universes. This will involve new detection technologies with a resolution from single molecule to continuous variables at the macroscopic scale, low-cost and energy-efficient distributed processing hardware, wireless communications technologies, systems for mass data management, processing, storage and access, new ontologies to facilitate data integration, and new statistical and analytical tools to improve experimental design and extract biologically distinguishable information from environmental and experimental noise.
In this research it is proposed to develop such a platform, taking advantage and extending the results of previous collaboration between PUJ (Cali and Bogotá), CIAT, Fedearroz, Cenicaña, Universidad del Quindío and Universidad de Ibagué.