By 2050 the world's population will reach 9.1 billion, and food demand is expected to increase by 70% (FAO, 2009). To answer this “Nine billion question,” it is imperative to improve the interdisciplinary nature of crop production. In this seminar, we will discuss the use of Big Data from high-throughput phenotyping and genomics to advance our knowledge on the genetic mechanisms underlying stress adaptation in crop plants.

We performed our experiment at The Plant Accelerator®, a high-throughput phenotyping platform (HTP) that provides non-destructive quantitative measurements for plant development over time. We used HTP to phenotype rice, one of the most important cereals, under salt stress conditions. The use of HTP enabled us to obtain multiple measurements throughout time, namely plant growth and architecture, as well as water loss under control and stress conditions. The wealth of data resulting from daily measurements is a major bottleneck for further analysis. To overcome this challenge we are currently exploring new methods to analyse the collected data and to perform genetic analysis to identify genetic signatures in response to abiotic stress.