The 2019 symposium, themed “Achievement. Expectations. Implementation”, showcased the knowledge and technological solutions created in Phase I of P2IRC’s research program, and featured talks on how those solutions may be applied to breed crops that will be more resilient to climate change—for Phase II of the innovative seven-year research and training program. The event featured renowned researchers from across the world and Canada, as well as industry representatives and students.

Presentations

Presentations at the symposium included:

  • Enabling the next revolution in global food production through automatically labelled data sets and machine learning—delivered by Christopher Henry, associate professor in the department of applied computer science at the University of Winnipeg;
  • A collaborative platform for plant phenotyping using blockchain—delivered by Mayra Samaniego Pallaroso, P2IRC researcher and PhD candidate at USask; and
  • Exhibits from industry partners.

Genomics to Phenomics

  • Laurent Philippot, INRA Dijon - A plant perspective on microbial communities and nitrogen cycling in the rhizosphere
  • Andrew Sharpe, P2IRC – The Omics and Precision Agriculture Laboratory (OPAL)
  • Larissa Ramsay, P2IRC – Assembling the Lens genus: Overcoming the challenges of large repeat-rich genomes
  • Isobel Parkin, P2IRC – Capturing Brassica diversity from the genome to the phenome

Machine Learning in the Lab

  • Chris Henry, University of Winnipeg - Enabling the next revolution in global food production through automatically labelled data sets and machine learning
  • Jordan Ubbens, P2IRC – Latent space phenotyping
  • Blanche Lezeya, P2IRC – An inexpensive ground-based imaging for plant emergence counting
  • Mayra Samaniego Pallaroso, P2IRC – A collaborative platform for plant phenotyping using blockchain

Roots/Plant Microbiome Imaging

  • Christophe Salon, INRA Dijon - From simple visualization to detailed understanding of plant and microbes interactions, using ‘pheno’ methods and models
  • Bobbi Helgason, P2IRC – Phenotyping the plant microbiome: progress in plant pedological phenotyping
  • Steve Mamet, P2IRC – Bacterial microbiomes and plant genotypes: What drives phenotypic variation among canola lines?
  • Steve Siciliano, P2IRC – Microbiomes and machines: the unicorn hypothesis

Panel Discussion

  •  Q&A with Laurent Philippot, Chris Henry, and Christophe Salon

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