PHENOME

Phenome will equip the French scientific community with an infrastructure and a series of methods to characterise genotype panels of different species (the main agronomic species) under various scenarios associated with climate change. Its objectives are to: (i) build or finalise platforms with extensive instrumentation at five sites in France that, as a whole, can meet needs pertaining to the main agronomic species within environmental constraints; (ii) develop hardware and software applications with technological breakthroughs and invent new sensors, analytical methods and databases compatible with millions of data points; and (iii) disseminate techniques and methods to the French phenotyping community (seed companies, technical institutes, public research entities) and facilitate the emergence of French SMEs involved in developing phenotyping methods. The Phenome consortium includes 12 academic groups and 2 technical institutes.

Phenome will be an essential tool for (i) the academic community, enabling the development of original programmes in genetics/genomics; (ii) private seed companies which will have access to the infrastructure through collaborative projects and bilateral contracts; (iii) French SMEs which will benefit directly from the project via subcontracting and indirectly to facilitate their access to the international markets for phenotyping and precision agriculture. The project began on 1 September 2012.

Contact information :
Coordinators :
François Tardieu - francois.tardieu@inra.fr
Jacques Le Gouis - jacques.legouis@inra.fr
Project manager : Pamela Lucas - pamela.lucas@inra.fr
www.phenome-fppn.fr