Chile: New drought-tolerant alfalfa germplasm for Mediterranean dryland areas was studied by ground and aerial phenotyping

A set of 69 accessions and cultivars with presumed tolerance to drought from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Spain, Australia, the United States and Chile were evaluated in the Experimental Field of Cauquenes of the Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA), in the Maule Region, under dry conditions and with supplementary irrigation of about 100 mm. The methods used in this study for aerial and ground phenotyping included the use of sensors, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), RGB and thermal cameras, and drones equipped with different sensors, including RGB, multispectral and thermal cameras. The main findings of this study are that aerial and terrestrial phenotyping can be used to assess alfalfa adaptation to prolonged periods of drought, and that the alfalfa diversity panel showed significant genetic variation in forage yield and other canopy traits under both rainfed and irrigated conditions. The study also found that normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and RGB ...