AUSTIN DOBBELS loves to fly drones, and it’s a major bonus to be able to combine his love of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with his plant breeding work. Dobbels, 27, is a PhD candidate in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics at the University of Minnesota studying how UAVs can be used for high- throughput phenotyping of soybean iron deficiency chlorosis. Iron deficiency chlorosis causes reduced soybean yields due to lack of available iron in the soil. Applying nutri- ents is costly, so the best tool for the farmer is to plant a variety tolerant to iron deficiency chlorosis. “Every year we screen thousands of vari- eties on many acres with thousands of plots. Traditionally we walked each field and rated them on a one-to-five scale and tran- scribed that on spreadsheets and chose varieties based on that. It took many hours and we could only capture one time point during the season,” Dobbels says. Enter the UAVs he likes so much. “With a drone we can fly the field in five minutes, capture images and go back to the computer and use image processing to get data from each plot to inform our breeding decisions. With a drone we can capture images every week and it literally takes five minutes.” During his time working with UAVs, he’s learned a few tricks to ensure he’s able to do the best work possible. As the old Boy Scout saying goes, always be prepared. “It’s important to have the right drone. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are cheap, and some are expensive. Having the right drone is crucial,” he says. “Some even fly themselves using a GPS signal. That really reduces the “user-crash- ing-the-drone” experience. It’s fun to fly them and they have good stability.” MAKESUREYOU’REWELL-EQUIPPED Having the right tools and knowing how to use them is not a new concept to plant breeding, of course. Arron Carter is Washington State University wheat breeder and mentor for the National Association of Plant Breeders Borlaug scholarship program. He says being adept at using the latest tools has always been a crucial skill of successful breeders. “I’ve been out of the PhD program for nine years and the technologies I used then are obsolete now. You have to stay up on the literature and techniques. There are things some of my grad students do with technology that I myself have never done. They’re getting to do the point where they have skill sets I’m not 100 per cent up on,” he says with a chuckle. “In the past it was about phenotyp- ing and walking into the field and look- ing with your eye. Now we have sensors, drones, we can look at photosynthesis and canopy temperature that you can’t see with your eye, and a lot more. There’s a lot of things we have at our fingertips now to figure out what will be useful and ben- eficial for breeding in the future.” For Dobbels, being a Borlaug Scholar is certainly fitting. At school he happens to spend a lot of time in Borlaug Hall doing his studies. He says Norman Borlaug is a great example of someone who used the latest tools to change the face of agriculture. “I really hope to use today’s novel tools to increase our food supply and produce new varieties for farmers,” he adds. “I grew up on a farm and we grew corn and soybeans. I was always heavily involved in ag and wanted to pursue it as a career. My dad inspires me to keep looking for that next big soybean variety the farmers will grow across the landscape.” Borlaug Scholar Austin Dobbels. Wheat breeder Arron Carter. NOVEMBER 2018 GERMINATION.CA 13