S03 - Session O1 - Phenotyping seedling emergence in legumes : a new tool towards understanding phenotypic plasticity of seed vigor

Authors: Julia Buitink, Joseph Ly Vu, David Rousseau, Angelina El Ghazir, Hadhami Garbouge, Olivier Leprince *

Grain legumes are of major economic importance in human food and animal feed. Given their ability to fix nitrogen, grain legumes are also pivotal to the development of a sustainable agriculture. However, instability of seed yield due to environmental fluctuations limits its wide adoption in Europe. Producing highly vigorous seeds is a key lever to increase crop production efficiency. Breeding for highly vigorous seeds is hampered by the lack of tools to assess reliably and on a large scale, the genetic architecture of traits related to germination performance and seedling emergence across large panels of genetic accessions. Here, we will present a high-throughput phenotyping platform that combines laboratory conditions mimicking field emergence together with automated imaging and machine-learning based phenotypic analysis. Using a range of legume species, such as Medicago ssp., Trifolium ssp., and pea, we will highlight the utility of this platform to capture seed performance traits on a seed-to-seed basis. The detailed trait analysis enabled the identification of loci associated with fast and homogenous seedling establishment.