About the project

This project aims to build a national infrastructure for plant phenotyping. Plant phenotyping is the description and characterization of complex plant traits using non-destructive image analysis-based tools. Phenotyping is currently a large bottleneck in plant science, agronomy and plant breeding.

The PheNo infrastructure addresses several priorities in the Strategies for National Infrastructure for Bioresources in Norway, including adaptation to climate change, the needs for a green transition and the integration of new technologies, digitalization, automation and robotization. By providing state-of-the-art unique plant phenotyping facilities to support the needs in research and education in Norway, the PheNo infrastructure will enable faster breeding of new cultivars and sustainable production systems adapted to the changing Norwegian climate, based on innovations in genetics, phenomics and integration of robotics and data science.

Norway will now join the several European countries that have established national phenotyping platforms, PheNo will become a Norwegian node in the European Strategic Forum for Research Infrastructure (ESFRI) roadmap project EMPHASIS (European Infrastructure for multi-scale Plant Phenomics and Simulation for food security in a changing climate) and provide phenotyping opportunities under the unique high-latitude Nordic growing conditions.

• Background

  PheNo builds on an established consortium of partners (UiO, UiT, NTNU & NIBIO) with complementary expertise in basic plant science, plant breeding, precision agriculture, horticulture, seed science, data science and data management with a common interest in plant phenotyping. The broad scope of the PheNo infrastructure will not only serve the needs in plant breeding and basic plant sciences but also support plant research needs across the whole “green sector”. It will be accessible to all relevant users across academia and industry regardless of PheNo partnership.

  By bringing together a wide range of users from academia and industry, co-creation will be developed that can lead to technological and economic innovations. The infrastructure includes all major plant science universities and research institutes in Norway and is developed through long-time collaboration with the main actors in the agricultural and horticultural industry.

• Objectives

  Our aim is to provide the Norwegian plant research and industry communities with state-of-the-art facilities for high resolution plant phenotyping under controlled growth conditions and in the field as well as for seed phenotyping by establishment of a national plant phenotyping infrastructure. PheNo will be a distributed national infrastructure (Figure 1) equipped with reliable and well-proven phenotyping facilities that can serve the needs of both basic and applied plant science research and industrial applications in plant cultivation, agronomy and plant breeding. Realising that both research and industry need reliable and affordable phenotyping solutions, the focus has been on selecting technology that is easy to operate, update and with affordable running costs for the targeted user groups.

  

• PheNo at NMBU

  Phenotyping services at NMBU will cover both controlled environment phenotyping, field phenotyping and seed phenotyping based on existing and new equipment and facilities that will be acquired as part of the infrastructure project. The phenotyping services will be provided through the newly established “Plant Phenotyping NMBU” service unit (Leiested). For local users, “Plant Phenotyping NMBU” will be able to offer use of various sensors and instruments for plant phenotyping, as an add-on to plant experiments conducted in growth chambers, greenhouses and fields operated by SKP.

  Controlled environment phenotyping

  A capability of multispectral 3D laser scanning of plants will be available in the greenhouse facilities in Åsbakken from 2026. We also have the plan to acquire various handheld sensors and photosynthesis instrument for use in greenhouses and field trials with planned availability in 2026.

  Field phenotyping

  For the field phenotyping we are pleased to be able to offer drone phenotyping services for field trials already this 2025 field season, with use of a portfolio of RGB, multispectral, thermal imaging sensors. The drone phenotyping capabilities will for the next field season be expanded with hyperspectral imaging and LiDAR sensing, covering the full spectrum of state-of-the art drone phenotyping in field trials. Starting from 2026, there will also be a full network of wireless soil sensors placed in the ground across the field station in Vollebekk, logging soil temperature, humidity and conductivity at hourly intervals. The infrastructure grant also includes funding for a new field harvester for forage research and upgrades of the irrigation system used in field trials.

  Seed phenotyping

  For analysing seed samples of crops, such as wheat, barley, oats and faba beans, a high-throughput seed phenotyping instrument will be available from 2026. By analysing 30 seeds per second using both RGB and NIR spectroscopy and pre-trained calibrations it can phenotype and sort individual seeds based on parameters such as size/shape of the seeds, chemical composition (protein content, oil content etc.) and disease infections (e.g. Fusarium). This offers new opportunities for genetics research and plant breeding targeting grain quality and seed-borne diseases.

  Contact details for further info:

  Morten Lillemo – project leader

  Sara Laranjeira – PheNo administrative coordinator

  Jan Roger Torp Sørby  - Center manager SKP

  For booking of field phenotyping services:

  Muhammad Fahad Ijaz – Head Engineer field phenotyping

• Participants

  NMBU employees

  

  Odd Arne Rognli

  Professor emeritus

  Send e-mail

  Lead partner and contact person (WP5 leader)

  External participants

  • Paul Grini - Lead partner and contact person (WP1 leader) - UiO
  • Faouzi Alaya Cheikh - Lead partner and contact person (WP3 leader) - NTNU
  • Steinar Trædal-Henden - Lead partner and contact person (WP4 leader) - UiT
  • Kjersti Balke Hveem - Lead partner and contact person (WP6 leader) - NIBIO
  • Inger Martinussen - Involved in WP6 - NIBIO
  • Laura Jaakola - responsible for PheNo infrastructure at UiT