Ingo Ensminger's FastPheno Project Receives $4.7 Million from Genome Canada

Biology’s Ingo Ensminger was recently awarded $4.7 million in funding for his FastPheno project by Genome Canada, a non-profit organization funded by the Government of Canada and co-funding partners. Genome Canada’s Genomic Applications Partnership Program (GAPP) brings new applied genomics solutions to issues facing Canadians, and supports collaborations in forestry, agrifood, the environment, and health. 

The challenge? Canada has 328 million hectares of forest, but with climate change impacting tree health and productivity, sustainable forest management is essential; the trees planted today need to withstand future climates. Genomic resources can be used to accelerate breeding cycles and select genotypes that are better adapted and more resilient; however, large-scale phenotyping is needed to assess adaptive traits in breeding populations of thousands of trees.

 Enter Ensminger’s lab: he studies plant-environment interactions and the impact of climate change on metabolism and photosynthesis of plants from molecular to leaf, species, and ecosystem level. Ensminger and his team have developed a drone-based technology that remotely assesses photosynthetic phenology and plant fitness. (Fast Track Diagnosis of Stress, Disease, Phenology and Growth - Drone-Based High-Throughput Field Phenotyping for Genome Assisted Tree Breeding and Selection (FastPheno)

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