Uas-based phenotyping platform for herbicide damage assessment in soybean breeding
A drone-enabled phenotyping solution that uses high-resolution aerial imagery and analytics to precisely measure herbicide injury in soybean plots, accelerating screening for genetic resilience to herbicide chemistries including drift and management applications.
Overview
This solution applies unmanned aerial systems (UAS) phenotyping to the challenge of screening elite soybean germplasm for resilience to herbicide damage. By replacing labor-intensive visual scoring with consistent, image-based measurements, the approach enables breeders and crop protection researchers to evaluate plant response to multiple herbicide chemistries, including drift scenarios, at far greater scale and precision. The underlying platform processes raw aerial imagery directly at the field edge, generating real-time metrics such as canopy cover and vegetation indices without requiring internet connectivity or ground control points, making it accessible to users without programming expertise.
Technical specifications
The platform integrates UAS-acquired RGB imagery with analytical pipelines calibrated against visual injury ratings. In field validation across four cultivars (two herbicide-susceptible and two herbicide-tolerant) under factorial treatments with multiple doses, RGB-derived canopy cover and greenness metrics achieved a 99% correlation (R²) with visual ratings taken at 7, 14, and 28 days after treatment. Imagery was collected at multiple time points across the growing season to capture progression of herbicide injury. The system is designed for small-plot research and variety trial environments, supporting breeders, seed companies, and crop protection researchers in reducing data processing time and infrastructure requirements.
Technology readiness level
The phenotyping methods have been validated in 2018 field experiments demonstrating strong agreement between UAS-derived metrics and visual scoring. Additional trials in 2020 expanded the chemical scope to dicamba and PPO inhibitors, with results pending. Future work in 2021 includes multi-environment trials across multiple herbicide treatments to further calibrate phenotyping methods. The underlying image analytics software has been deployed in commercial agricultural research operations, indicating a mature readiness level for integration into breeding and crop protection workflows.
About Progeny Drone, Inc.
Progeny Drone, Inc. was a Purdue-affiliated software startup that developed Plot Phenix, an agricultural technology platform designed to transform raw aerial photography from drones into actionable data for precision crop management. The software utilized high-resolution image analytics to process imagery at the field edge, enabling researchers and agronomists to generate real-time metrics such as plant stand counts, vegetation indices, and canopy size without requiring internet connectivity or labor-intensive ground control points. By making complex data analysis accessible to users without programming expertise, the platform aimed to improve the efficiency and accuracy of small-plot agricultural research and variety trials.
The technology proved valuable to plant breeders, seed companies, and crop protection researchers by reducing data processing times and infrastructure requirements, ultimately facilitating more data-driven decision-making in agricultural research. In 2024, the company's efforts culminated in the acquisition of exclusive global rights to its Phenix software by Corteva, which integrated the platform into its global crop protection field research operations to streamline digital assessments and improve the development of new agricultural products. Prior to this acquisition, the company, founded in 2018, received support from the Purdue Ag-celerator and the National Science Foundation I-Corps program to validate its technology and market viability.
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