Crown rot is a significant constraint to the profitability of grain growers across Australia. There are currently limited control options for the disease while conservation farming and drier climates can exacerbate the issue. One component of a sustainable option for addressing crown rot is the development of high yielding resistant and tolerant cereal cultivars. The available methodology for phenotypic screening for crown rot resistance (scoring of stem browning) is very slow, labour intensive, subjective and requires significant training. Currently there is no method for high throughput field phenotyping for either resistance or tolerance. Phenotyping technologies have progressed rapidly in the last decade with new sensors, image analysis techniques and analytical methods making challenging tasks, like phenotyping crown rot, feasible.

This four-year investment will lead to the development of an innovative crown rot phenotyping methodology for cereals that has increased throughput, scalability, repeatability and significantly reduced costs in comparison to the current phenotyping methods. The new methodology will then be applied to better understand the relationship between resistance scores, disease load and yield loss in key environments.