AI for Plant Breeding: Speed Breeding

Speed breeding is like a speed dating ?? but for plant genes, in controlled environmental conditions and within special scientific programs. This is a direct quote from my earlier post but it shows the essence of this important process.

Speed breeding, which involves growing crops under artificial light and temperature conditions, has become crucial for accelerating breeding cycles.

This method can incorporate marker-assisted selection and advanced gene-editing tools for early selection and manipulation of crops with superior agronomic traits. Scientists are utilizing next-generation AI to explore the complex biological and molecular mechanisms influencing plant functions under environmental conditions. Let's consider just a few researchers published by Indian ???? scientists - this will be a nice way to celebrate our new series "AI for Plant Breeding".

Speed Breeding for Major Crops: Time Savings

A recent article from the research team of Lovely Professional University explains what is speed breeding on real life examples. The research focuses on speed breeding for wheat, barley, rice, canola, soybean, chickpea, lentil, pigeon pea, tomato, and pea. Summarizing the main thoughts of the research, the team discovered the following numerical insights, which can be enhanced with AI:

1. Speed breeding can achieve 4-6 generations per year in various crops compared to 1-2 generations per year using conventional methods .
2. Maintaining temperatures around 20-22°C for wheat and barley allows for up to eight generations per year.
3. Using a 10-hour photoperiod with specific light conditions can result in soybean plants maturing in 77 days, enabling five generations per year.
4. In studies with rice, a germination rate of 95-100% was achieved by optimizing seedling tray conditions and thinning processes.
5. Speed breeding coupled with genomic selection and other advanced techniques can reduce the breeding cycle of wheat from 3-7 years to just 1-2 years

Speed Breeding Concept: Where is AI Applied?

One more comprehensive overview of speed breeding is provided by the consortium of Indian agriscience research institutions. The team has reviewed the state of plant breeding for the following crop species:

• Cereals
• Legumes
• Vegetables and Other Horticultural Crops
• Oilseed Crops
• Fibre

Advanced techniques like CRISPR-based gene editing, high-throughput phenotyping, and genomic selection can further optimize speed breeding protocols, enabling rapid development of crop varieties with desired traits. The use of AI-driven control systems to optimize environmental conditions will increase efficiency, allowing for simultaneous cultivation of multiple generations and diverse crops.

Plant breeding with AI vs. Conventional Breeding

Where exactly AI can be applicable in comparison with traditional plant breeding methods? The question is answered by the scientist Krishna Kumar Rai from Banaras Hindu University . In the paper published in February 2024 in Tropical Plant Biology, he compared conventional breeding techniques and speed breeding.

Conventional breeding technologies are limited, time-consuming, and labor-intensive, necessitating the acceleration of plant breeding cycles through AI to monitor plant responses to environmental changes in real-time. Next-generation AI facilitates the exploration of complex plant mechanisms and the analysis of OMICS datasets, essential for developing high-yield, adaptable crop plants.

??What's next in plant breeding tech?

Next edition of "AI for Plant Breeding" will be focused on phenotyping, particularly, using low-cost scalable equipment. Which crops shall we focus in the next edition?

Please let me know in the comments ??

Wishes of speed breeding cycles,

Maryna Kuzmenko, Ph.D ????, Chief Inspiration Officer at Petiole Pro Community

#speedbreeding

Photo credit for cover image: Chaudhary, N., Sandhu, R. A comprehensive review on speed breeding methods and applications. Euphytica 220, 42 (2024).