Using imaging and machine learning tools to analyse features of plant leaves

Andrew Leakey, Jiayang (Kevin) Xie and their colleagues developed an improved method for analyzing features of plant leaves that contribute to water-use efficiency in crops like corn, sorghum (pictured) and Setaria. They used advanced statistical approaches to identify regions of the genome and lists of genes that contribute to these traits. Scientists have developed and deployed a series of new imaging and machine learning tools to discover attributes that contribute to water-use efficiency in crop plants during photosynthesis and to reveal the genetic basis of variation in those traits. The findings are described in a series of four research papers led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduate students Jiayang (Kevin) Xie and Parthiban Prakash, and postdoctoral researchers John Ferguson, Samuel Fernandes and Charles Pignon. The goal is to breed or engineer crops that are better at conserving water without sacrificing yield, said Andrew Leakey, a professor of plant biology and of crop sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who directed the research.