Challenges of Crop Phenomics in the Post-genomic Era

The idea of linking genes to phenotypes, with the aim of manipulating those phenotypes, has been one of the main drivers behind the huge investment in developing genetic and genomic platforms in both model plants (such as Arabidopsis https://arabidopsis.info and Brachypodium (https://www.brachypodium.org) and crops, of which rice and maize present perhaps the best examples (https://signal.salk.edu/cgi-bin/RiceGE https://rmd.ncpgr.cn/; https://tos.nias.affrc.go.jp https://maizecoop.cropsci.uiuc.edu/mgc-info.php)). Indeed, modern genetics has been instrumental in discovering the primary genetic determinants of very many phenotypes (or traits), such as resistance to diseases, development and response to defined environmental variables to mention just but a few. Most attention has focused on single gene knockouts and on the resultant simple, relatively discreet, traits. These traits are much easier to analyse than the polygenic continuous traits that are of general importance in agriculture.