The traits breeders most want to select on — yield potential, stress tolerance, resource-use efficiency — are the most expensive and destructive to measure, which limits how many candidates can ever be evaluated directly.
UAV imaging with PhenoScale captures secondary traits that correlate with those breeding values: canopy growth dynamics, biomass accumulation, senescence timing and spectral indices. Analysed by Hiphen Intelligence and paired with reference data, they train predictive models applicable to the whole population.
Breeders can then estimate a breeding value for candidates that were never measured directly, extending selection to far larger populations at a fraction of the phenotyping cost.