AGRICULTURE
Wheat breeding gains from 3D data
Greg Blackman speaks to Dr Richard Dudley about the National Physical Laboratory’s 3D imaging rig, which will be scanning wheat in crop breeding trials this summer
T
he Harvesters , an oil painting by the Dutch master Pieter Bruegel the Elder, was often a teaching aid when I was
a student to illustrate how crop breeding has changed agriculture. Te picture depicts labourers bringing in sheaths of wheat in 16th century Flanders. It’s not the farming practices that we were asked to look at, but the height of the wheat, which reached the farm hands’ shoulders in 1565 when the picture was painted – walk through a field of wheat today and it might be around your knees.
Te modern dwarf varieties of wheat are
the result of many years of plant breeding. A stocky plant isn’t flattened by high winds or heavy rain, while at the same time more of the plant’s energy goes into the grain, rather than into growing tall. Other characteristics can also be enhanced
by breeding, such as yield, grain quality and disease resistance. Now the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the UK is offering plant breeders and agricultural researchers new measurement methods based on imaging that have the potential to accelerate plant breeding trials, and ultimately improve food security as farmers seek to feed a growing population. Te NPL has built a wheeled platform
equipped with a number of 3D imaging technologies, which can be attached to a tractor or otherwise pulled across a field.
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A detail from The Havesters (1565), by Dutch master Pieter Bruegel the Elder
One version of the imaging rig includes an 18 stereo camera system. Te intention is to generate a complete 3D scan of a field trial plot to assess how varieties of wheat grow. NPL researchers also use time-of-flight,
lidar, hyperspectral imaging and other cameras, including Photoneo’s 3D structured light camera supplied by Multipix Imaging, which is Photoneo’s distributor in the UK. ‘Currently, it takes in the region of five to
ten years to develop a new variety of plant because of the throughput issues,’ explained Dr Richard Dudley, science area leader for
‘[A 3D scan] can give seed producers a three- month advantage, in time to decide what [plants] they are going to upscale’
electromagnetics and precision agriculture at the National Physical Laboratory. ‘With more data we feel we can reduce that – maybe down to a couple of years, a couple of seasons.’ Data from a 3D scan can give seed
manufacturers an early indication of what varieties they want to produce for next year. ‘It can give them [seed producers] a three- month advantage, in time to decide what they are going to upscale production of, and that can be really valuable,’ added Dudley. NPL is focusing its efforts on wheat
initially, because it’s one of the highest value crops grown and bred in the UK. Plant breeding requires lots of physical
measurements, according to Dudley, which traditionally are made by researchers walking around the plot with a ruler and taking photos. NPL’s imaging platform can capture crop trials in a lot more detail in 3D. Algorithms are then applied, to give crop breeders more data to make decisions.
g FEBRUARY/MARCH 2020 IMAGING AND MACHINE VISION EUROPE 13
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