Controlled Environment Phenotyping Facility at Purdue University In April 2018, Purdue University’s Institute for Plant Sciences opened the doors to their new Controlled Environment Phenotyping Facility. The building project was designed to allow for more capacity and better data quality that comes from “highly consistent and uniform environmental condi- tions” as scientists look to better understand that impact of specific genomes, says Yang Yang, the director of digital phenomics at Purdue University. The new facility, at about 7,300 square feet, includes one large climate chamber equipped with conveyors and robots to move and care for fully-grown plants such as hybrid corn and sorghum plants, along with automated RGB and hyper- spectral imaging systems that can accommodate plants more than 15 feet tall. The controlled environment setting also features precision irrigation technology that can administer weight-based irrigation management. “The goals of the facility are to position Purdue as a leader in plant phenotyping using state-of-the-art imaging and sensing technologies; to facilitate and strengthen plant research programs at Purdue University and our ability to deploy discoveries for global impact,” Yang says. In addition to the large growth chamber and fertiga- tion and imaging technologies, the Controlled Environment Phenotyping Facility (CEPF) is unique in the integrated data pipeline system it uses for image analysis, data mining and delivery, Yang adds. “The technologies deployed in Purdue’s CEPF can empower researchers to acquire a much better understand- ing on the connection between a crop’s genomic background and its phenotypic performance at much more efficient and consistent manners, thereby accelerating the efforts in breeding for newer varieties with higher yield and better stress tolerance traits,” Yang says. “In and by itself, Purdue’s CEPF is the combination of expertise of multiple disciplines, such as biology, engineering and data sciences, which make the CEPF a perfect ‘melt- ing pot’ for students of different disciplines to acquire the interdisciplinary experiences and education that one would otherwise be hard-pressed to achieve without a facility as the CEPF.” SW 32 / SEEDWORLD.COM JANUARY 2019 The Controlled Environment Phenotyping Facility at Purdue includes one large climate chamber equipped with conveyors and robots to move and care for fully grown plants, along with automated RGBand hyperspectral imaging systems that can accommodate plants more than 15 feet tall.