EMPHASIS-Belgium
EMPHASIS-Belgium is the Belgian node of EMPHASIS, the European Research Infrastructure for Plant Phenotyping, which accelerates insights into plant performance and unifies the plant phenotyping community.
Smart Technologies for Sustainable Food Production
Continued improvements in crop performance are needed to cope with climate change and to keep pace with population growth. To tackle these global challenges, novel approaches are required to identify superior crop varieties and to explain the genetics of agriculturally important traits. Plant phenotyping covers the description and characterisation of such complex plant traits and crop responses, using non-destructive image analysis-based tools in the context of plant research and crop breeding. Synergies between Flemish phenotyping installations, coordination of phenotyping initiatives and training, and access to state-of-the-art phenotyping platforms is needed to drive world-leading plant and agricultural sciences.
Plant Phenotyping Infrastructure
EMPHASIS-Belgium is the national node for the European distributed plant phenotyping infrastructure EMPHASIS. The goal of this project is to provide researchers access to plant phenotyping facilities and services, and bring together the Belgian plant phenotyping community to exchange ideas, foster collaborations, and explore future opportunities.
EMPHASIS-Belgium is sponsored by FWO (Research Foundation Flanders) and coordinated by the following partners:
- VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology (PSB)
- VIB Agro-Incubator
- ILVO (Instituut voor Landbouw, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek)
- VITO Remote Sensing
Multiscale Plant Phenotyping
VIB, ILVO, and VITO join forces to offer and improve their phenotyping and remote sensing platforms to perform multiscale crop research. Their infrastructure and expertise range from detailed measurements in controlled lab environments to field assessments with drones and satellites.
