Plant2Trait: Innovative technology for 3D plant phenotyping

Agriculture worldwide is under pressure because a growing global population needs more food, while climate change and soil degradation increasingly reduce yields and quality. A promising solution is automated plant phenotyping. It enables the systematic analysis and better understanding of how a given genotype interacts with its environment. This allows breeders to develop resistant varieties more quickly that can withstand the challenges of climate change. At the same time, the technology helps farmers efficiently monitor their crops and intervene in a targeted, resource-efficient manner when problems arise. The phenotype—i.e., the outward appearance of a plant—results from the interplay of genetics and environmental influences and is a central starting point for these investigations.

The Plant2Trait technology was developed to capture plants in three dimensions and automatically extract phenotypic traits from the data. Plants are recorded with cameras in 3D and digitally reconstructed. These models are segmented into individual organs such as leaves, stems, and fruits, from which phenotypic parameters such as plant size, biomass, or leaf angle are calculated. In addition to structural analysis, the plant is captured multispectrally, allowing color and spectral indices—such as NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index)—to be computed spatially resolved. In this way, precise information can be derived from large volumes of raw data, enabling comparisons of different genotypes and environmental conditions. By repeatedly imaging the same plant, the temporal development of its traits can also be documented, allowing detailed investigation of growth dynamics under changing environmental conditions.