About Us

The Phenomics Core Facility was founded by Dr. Argelia Lorence in 2011. The key instrument is a Scanalyzer HTS platform (LemnaTec, Germany). The instrument is equipped with four high resolution imaging units: visible, fluorescence, near infrared and far infrared and the computing power and software to analyze the acquired images. This instrument empowers quantitative, non-destructive imaging technology that can be simultaneously applied to hundreds of plants or parts of to evaluate plant growth, biomass, and other agronomic traits of interest in a controlled, statistically relevant greenhouse environment. Dedicated computers control the equipment and allow data analysis and storage. Additional small devices are available to assess photosynthetic efficiency, soil moisture, and seed yield. The facility is staffed with a full time manager. Among the assays we provide are the following: 

• Seed phenotyping in multiwell plates  
• Assessment of in vitro plant tissue cultures in petri dishes. 
• Plant Phenotyping: Tray configurations for small plants such as Arabidopsis, Camelina, and Marchantia. 
• Plant Phenotyping: Pot configurations for larger, faster growing plants, including rice, maize, soybean, tobacco, and tomato.  
• We routinely test plants growing in both soil and hydroponics, and a number of stress tolerance protocols have been optimized, including those to assess water limitation, heat, nutrients, light, and salinity. 
• We continue to update our technology and protocols in order to achieve the highest level of excellence during each experiment. 
• We use visible (RGB), fluorescence (FLUO), near infrared (NIR) and far infrared (IR) sensors, and proprietary and open source algorithms. These tools allow us to obtain a wealth of digital readouts to quantify plant size, color, architecture, in planta chlorophyll fluorescence, in planta water content and leaf temperature, to empower plant biology research.