NDSU Department of Plant Sciences research scientist Filipe Matias is part of a multi-state research group that has been awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The group will study the use of unoccupied aerial vehicles, known as UAVs, for genome to phenome agricultural production research.

The Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative is a three-year grant with the goal of connecting interdisciplinary crop and livestock scientists who are researching the effects of genotype and environmental influences on important agricultural phenotypes.

Short-term (six months to a year) seed grants to identify research needs and share opportunities are awarded each year of the grant in three rounds. The research team including Matias received a first-year seed grant titled “Empowering High-Throughput Phenotyping using Unoccupied Aerial Vehicles.”

The research team working with Matias includes Max Feldman of the USDA-Agricultural Research Service in Prosser, Washington; Jennifer Lachowiec of Montana State University; and David LeBauer of the University of Arizona. Their goals are creating a community of researchers to develop software and pipelines for gathering data, learning UAV operating procedures and creating communication tools.

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