The PHENOME project aims to equip the French scientific community with an infrastructure able to measure the agronomic characteristics of plants subjected to various climate scenarios and technical itineraries associated with global change, using precise and high throughput methods.Phenome develops an infrastructure and a suite of methods for characterising hundreds of genotypes under environmental scenarios of climate changes.

The infrastructure consists of two platforms in controlled conditions for in-depth analysis of leaf or root system under ranges of water deficit, CO2 concentration and temperature;  two field platforms with semi-controlled environments, in particular large rainout-shelters and one free-air carbon enrichment system;  three field platforms with very high throughputs equipped with soil and climate sensors;  two supporting platforms centralise metabolomic and structural measurements associated with experiments

Platforms can cope with throughputs of 200-300 genotypes and manipulate/control environmental conditions. They are equipped with a consistent set of 3D functional imaging techniques, namely detailed imaging of roots and shoots in controlled conditions, and canopy imaging with a ‘phenomobile’ and with drones in the field. Platforms are accessible to public and private partners via the project website.

Applications with technological jumps are developed at infrastructure level, with partnerships with French SMEs. They improve our capacity to measure plant traits and environmental conditions in field and platforms;  organise phenotypic data originating from all Phenome platforms, so they can be saved and analysed in the next 20-30 years;  handle very large datasets with applications on data cleaning via machine learning, analyses of time-related data and development of an interface with plant and crop models.

Phenome has resulted in the development of SMEs (three spin off, several patents and new activities of existing SMEs). Networking and training activities are developed towards seed companies, SMEs and the extension system. Phenome is participating to a European I3 project (EPPN2020) and to the preparatory phase for a European ESFRI infrastructure (EMPHASIS) selected for the ESFRI roadmap 2016.