大象传媒

In this week鈥檚 Science Caf茅 Adam visits Aberystwyth University鈥檚 robot greenhouse. Around him, hundreds of plants in pots move steadily back and forth on conveyor belts. Every so often they disappear into a series of large cabins to be photographed, from several angles, in infrared and normal light. It鈥檚 like an automated factory production line and there鈥檚 hardly a human being to be seen.

听

This is the National Plant Phenomics Centre, a brand new laboratory which is unique in the UK and one of only a handful of similar facilities in the world.听 It鈥檚 based at Aberystwyth University鈥檚 Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences and it鈥檚 an important tool in breeding the crops of the future. It will help scientists understand the links between a plant鈥檚 genome (all its genetic information) and its phenome (all its physical and biomechanical traits) and develop drought-tolerant plants which can cope with climate change as well as crops which can provide us with biofuels, chemicals and superfoods.

听

Adam gets a guided tour from plant physiologist Alan Gay. He also meets the Centre鈥檚 Director, Prof. John Doonan, and Dr. Catherine Howarth, who鈥檚 using the facility to assess and develop oat plants with a greater yield. And computer scientist Dr. Roger Boyle explains the difficulties of developing software to interpret all the images from the Centre. Effectively, he has to teach a computer to understand what a plant is!