In June 2024 NordPlant finished operations. Five Nordic universities with versatile and complementing research infrastructures established NordPlant in 2018 to promote education, research mobility and technological development to meet future challenges in Nordic agriculture and forestry. We are proud over NordPlant’s achievements, and believe that we have achieved a large majority of the goals we set.
After 6.5 years, NordPlant has published 42 scientific papers, far beyond the 18 we had as a milestone in our proposal. There are still some manuscripts in the pipeline. This is a testament to the fruitful collaborations and strong output of the consortium.
The interactions generated by NordPlant has resulted in a number of research projects. Below are a few examples of the ongoing and finished collaborative projects in NordPlant:
- A collaboration between Dr. Laura Jaakola, UiT and Dr. Timo Hytönen, UHEL on Fragaria vesca and light quality, that led to new collaboration with Max Planck institute with two published joint articles.
- A collaboration between Dr. Kristiina Himanen, UHEL and Prof Thomas Roitsch, UCPH, where metabolomics samples that were sent from UH to UCPH have been analyzed and sugar metabolism related enzymatic profiles are now being correlated with the plant treatments during vernalization, early growth, growth phase and seed setting.
- Two collaborations between Dr. Kristiina Himanen, UHEL and Dr. Aakash Chawade, SLU Alnarp performed in 2022. Barley genotypes were provided by SLU and Lantmännen for drought stress phenotyping at the NaPPI facility at UH.
- Two collaborations between Dr. Kristiina Himanen, UHEL and Prof Thomas Roitsch, UCPH and a number of scientists at SLU Alnarp for phenotyping potato genotypes
We have also worked hard to keep contacts with our European counterparts as well as EMPHASIS.
Common standards for plant phenotyping data
The use of common standards for data handling, metadata generation and data storage are a necessary prerequisite for the FAIR data principles (that research data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). One key goals of NordPlant is to establish a set of common data standards for the participating facilities. In 2020, work began on the installation of the PHIS system, developed by INRAE Montpellier. During the summer and fall of 2022, the entire PHIS installation was moved to the European Grid Infrastructure. During the rest of 2022, we tested the installation and planned a phenomics data platforms intro and user training workshop. The work with PHIS is continuing as part of UPSCALE.
Each year in the time period 2018-2023, NordPlant has arranged an annual meeting. These meetings have perhaps been the most important venue for networking. In these meetings, scientists from NordPlant and other universities have met representatives from different commercial companies and other organizations. The final annual meeting was held on 22-23 November in Båstad, Sweden, with the theme “The future of plant phenotyping”. At the start of the meeting, NordPlant coordinator Erik Alexandersson (SLU) gave a summary of NordPlant’s accomplishments and milestone achievements. Erik stressed the future importance of continued networking around plant phenotyping and modelling, and introduced UPCSALE – a partial successor to NordPlant, which is focusing on a number of findings in NordPlant. The meeting was held back to back with the Nordic Plant Phenotyping network. We are happy to announce that after further discussions we have now merged the network part of NordPlant and NPPN forming the Nordic-Baltic Plant Phenotyping Network (NBPPN) which now also has received funding from NKJ and will have its physical kick-off in November 2024.
Even if NordPlant now is coming to an end the NordPlant-UPSCALE is continuing until the end of 2026.