Harnessing enviro-typing for the development of resilient crops: advancing environmental characterization in crop improvement strategies

Enviro-typing is a concept introduced in the paper that involves measuring all environmental factors influencing plant growth and yield to enhance crop production. It utilizes environmental data to make informed decisions in crop science and production, complementing genotyping and phenotyping. Key factors in enviro-typing include climate, soil information, crop canopy, crop management, and companion organisms. By understanding the interaction between genotypes and environmental factors, breeders can develop crops that are more resilient to environmental stresses. Enviro-typing enables researchers to partition crop phenotypes into contributions from genotypic effects, enviro-typic effects, genotype-environment interactions, and experimental error. This approach integrates phenotyping to comprehend the impact of environmental factors on crop plants. It can aid precision agriculture, breeding, agronomic genomics, and the enhancement of companion organisms. A 4D profile of crop production encompasses spatial and temporal aspects of crop growth and development. To analyze the large datasets generated by genotyping, phenotyping, and enviro-typing, standardized data generation and collection procedures, controlled vocabularies, ontologies, and interoperable query systems are recommended. In summary, enviro-typing is an invaluable tool for understanding the impact of environmental factors on crop plants and can support the development of precision agriculture and breeding.