First issued: 10th October 2010

©LemnaTec 2010

PhenoFab

LemnaTec and KeyGene® establish

PhenoFab™: the automated plant pheno-

typing facility

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LemnaTec GmbH · Schumanstr. 18 · 52146 Würselen · Germany

Phone: +49 24 05  41 26-15 · info@lemnatec.com PhenoFab

Trait Spotting – our Busi-

ness

In the plant breeding

industry phenotyping is

one of the most crucial

aspects of variety devel-

opment. Phenotyping is

laborious and requires

significant experience and

a professional breeder’s

eye. The high complexity of

agronomically important

traits makes it even more

difficult to perform objec-

tive and robust phenotyp-

ing in a high throughput

manner.

In contrast, the enormous

accomplishments that have

been achieved in

highthroughput, sequence-

based plant genotyping

emphasize the need to

scale up the development

of automated phenotyping

technology. PhenoFab™ is

a greenhouse service

operation that combines

high-throughput, non-

invasive technology with

trait interpretation to

exploit phenotypic varia-

tion. It closes the “pheno-

typing gap”.

LemnaTec and KeyGene® establish PhenoFab™:

the automated plant phenotyping facility

Today, KeyGene and LemnaTec announce the start of their joint plant phenotyping facility

PhenoFab in Wageningen, the Netherlands.

In the era of Plant Genomics the amount of DNA information of crops has been enormously

increased. Therefore more effective and reliable phenotyping data has become the bottle-

neck in modern genetic crop improvement. PhenoFab is one of the first facilities which ex-

actly address the Phenotyping bottleneck by providing contracted research solutions to this

problem. This will surely generate new opportunities for the seed industry, breeding insti-

tutes and academic breeding groups.

The new PhenoFab center is a fully automated greenhouse facility with a total capacity of up

to 1300 plants on the conveyor belt system. The system has three different imaging sta-

tions, enabling automated 3D imaging and image analysis in visible light, near infrared light

(enabling water content measurements) and fluorescent light (enabling the visualization of

Chlorophyll or other fluorescent substances e.g. GFP or other reporter genes)

With an existing automated phenotyping system, KeyGene and LemnaTec have generated

phenotyping experience for a number of crops (e.g. maize, tobacco, potato, canola and vari-

ous vegetable crops), a number of traits (e.g. drought resistance, growth and yield, quality

traits, various biotic stresses and root development). Impressed by and building on the strik-

ing results and commercial opportunities, a new system has been developed and installed

that is now available as a screening device for the seed industry on a fee for service base.

The PhenoFab facility is located in Wageningen in the heart of the Dutch Agro Food Center of

Excellence: Food Valley. It combines the proprietary and excellent second generation auto-

mated imaging and conveyor belt system developed and marketed by the German company

LemnaTec and the deep plant breeding and phenotyping algorithm expertise of the Dutch

Ag-Biotech company KeyGene.

Dirk Vandenhirtz CEO of LemnaTec:

“…with our PhenoFab commitment we hope to shift Phenomic rese-

arch onto a higher level. The combination of experiences from Lemna-Tec and KeyGene will enable the facility to provide state of the art ser-vices in Plant Phenotyping research. LemnaTec has worked in Scientific Image Processing since 1998 and has installed Phenotyping Systems all over the world. With this new joint plant phenotyping facility it is now the first time that LemnaTec will offer direct research services in Plant Phenomics to breeders. This project has a great strategic value for LemnaTec and we look forward to extending our business into Plant Phenotyping Services

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LemnaTec GmbH · Schumanstr. 18 · 52146 Würselen · Germany

Phone: +49 24 05  41 26-15 · info@lemnatec.com PhenoFab

Arjen J. van Tunen, CEO of KeyGene:

“With these new facilities in Food Valley we have now the possibility to generate reliable and robust phenotypic data in a fast and non-destructive way. We can combine these data with our wealth of know-ledge of the DNA of the crops involved and create breakthrough oppor-tunities concerning traits that can be directly used in practical breeding programs. Already from the experimental set up we were able to ge-nerate new BioMarkers that are now practically used to genetically im-prove crops for economically highly relevant traits that were otherwise not or only difficult to determine. I have high expectations that our strategic collaboration with the engineering experts of LemnaTec will

bring big advancements for us and our clients“

For further information, please contact:

LemnaTec GmbH

Schumanstr. 18

52146 Wuerselen

Germany

www.phenofab.com