Harnessing Genomics Through Phenomics

Plant genetics and genomics have revolutionized agricultural research, and a vast amount of genomics resources have been developed in crop plants. However, these genomics resources could not be utilized with their full potential in genetic improvement of crop plants especially for the improvement of complex quantitative traits related to biotic and abiotic stresses and the outcome is still far from satisfactory. Among several reasons, the lack of availability of precise and high-throughput phenotyping tools are cited as the major one, as poor phenotyping has led to poor results in gene/QTL discovery for genomics-assisted breeding applications. During the recent past, high-throughput precise phenotyping tools and techniques have been developed, which led to development of a number of phenomics platforms. These phenomics platforms can help us to collect high-quality accurate phenotyping data necessary for harnessing the potentiality of genomics resources through genetic dissection of complex quantitative traits including discovery of new gene/QTL, identification of gene function, and genomics selection. This chapter focuses on recent developments in the area of phenomics and provides an overview on the practical use of genomics through crop phenomics.