Experiment: Identification of tolerant pea genotypes to drought stress

Pea production is threatened by drought stress. So, there are demands in identifying drought-tolerant pea cultivars to ensure global food security.

Experiment Aim

In this study, the NPEC platform provides high-throughput plant phenotyping conditions. This trial aims to evaluate contrasting genotypes on water use efficiency between 325 accessions, including crop wild relatives / wild peas (13 accessions of P. fulvum, 7 of P. abyssinicum, 80 of varius ssp of P. sativum) and finally to identify “quantitative trait loci” (QTLS) related to the drought resistance genes. We selected 180 genotypes with the highest percentage of protein to make use of the conveyor system in NPEC greenhouse, with three replicates for control and three replicates for drought, resulting in an experiment with 1.080 pots.

These are accessions covering the wide variation in Pisum. Detailed info can be found in: Rispail N, Wohor OZ, Osuna-Caballero S, Barilli E, Rubiales D, 2023. Genetic diversity and population structure of a wide Pisum spp. core collection. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 24: 2470.

NPEC Usage

The NPEC greenhouse was used for this experiment. The 180 genotypes were grown inside both of the plant-to-sensor conveyor compartments. Plants were imaged on a regular basis with the 3D Maxi-Marvin, CropReporter and RGB SideView camera systems.

Experiment Researchers

University Catolica Portuguesa (Faculty of Biotechnology):

  • Researcher: Maryam Bagheri – ORCID ID
  • Supervisor: Marta W. Vasconcelos – ORCID ID
  • Co-supervisor: Carla S. Santos – ORCID ID

Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, CSIC, Córdoba, Spain:

  • Co-supervisor: Diego Rubiales – ORCID ID

Wageningen University & Research:

More information

This research was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme through two projects “Sensors and daTA tRaininG towards high-performance Agri-food sysTEms” (STARGATE), “Realising Dynamic Value Chains for Underutilised Crops” (RADIANT), and by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) through PhD scholarship 2021.08330.BD.