Nicolas Virlet

Nicolas is a plant physiologist with a focus on field phenotyping. He uses imaging technologies to increase the rate of observation and potential targets to evaluate plant behaviour and performance in the real environment. His research interest concerns the interpretation of the spectral signal that is collected from various imaging sensors related to plant morpho-pheno-physiological traits. Nicolas had developed expertise in plant physiology (water use, transpiration), remote sensing (thermal infrared, spectral indices) and quantitative genetics, both applied on high-throughput field phenotyping. Currently, he is working on the Field Scanalyzer, the automated field phenotyping platform co-developed by Rothamsted Research and Lemnatec. His tasks are threefold: 1) ensure the quality of data acquired by the Field Scanalyzer; 2) make sense of them compared to the traditionally used traits; and 3) explore the genetic diversity of the screened germplasm in terms of performances and components driving them.