PhenoApp

With the ongoing cost decrease of genotyping and sequencing technologies, accurate and fast phenotyping remains the bottleneck in the utilizing of plant genetic resources for breeding and breeding research. Although cost-efficient high-throughput phenotyping platforms emerged during the last decades for specific traits and/or species, manual phenotyping is still predominant and a time- and money-consuming task. Approaches that improve data recording, processing or handling are pivotal steps towards an efficient usage of genetic resources and demanded by the research community. Therefore, we developed PhenoApp, an open source Android app for tablets and smartphones to facilitate the digital recording of phenotypical data in the field and greenhouse. It is a versatile tool, that offers the possibility to fully customize own descriptors/scales for any possible scenario or the usage of pre-integrated ready-to-use BBCH scales for apple, cereals, grapevine, maize, potato, rapeseed and rice. Additional BBCH scales can easily be added. Furthermore, the simple and adaptable structure of input and output files enables an easy data handling by either spreadsheet software or even the integration in the workflow of laboratory information management systems (LIMS). The embedding in international information standards such as MIAPPE or the implementation regarding FAIR data principles is feasible. PhenoApp is a decisive contribution to increase efficiency of digital data acquisition in breeding, breeding research and genebank management by accelerating the labor intensive and time-consuming acquisition of phenotyping data.