FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to plant breed selection. Particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for selecting a plant breed, which enables evaluating the performance of the new breeds, while minimizing a need for planting and monitoring the new breeds.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Traditionally, database systems are known to be used in tracking various activities related to a plantation, in particular oil palm plantation. Such systems help a plantation owner or grower to store various information about the plantation such as number of trees, breeds, age, location, yield, fertilizer applied, water consumption and the like, and to use the information in taking strategic decisions to improve yield and revenue.

United States Patent Publication US 2016/0078569 A1 discloses a networked agricultural intelligence system for determining agricultural revenue, wherein the system receives field condition data, historical yield data and historical cost data and calculates a yield projection based on the received data. This helps a farmer to make strategic decisions to maximize yield and revenue.

European Patent Publication EP 1,220,121 A1 discloses a system for predicting plant development in order to predict the plant’s condition at a given moment in time starting from preselected starting conditions. The system receives plant data, growth substrate property data and root system data as input data and calculates the plant’s condition at any given moment based on the received data. This enables growers and breeders to make an optimal choice of starting conditions and to provide better predictions of the development of plants in time.

Hence, there is a need for method and system for selecting a plant breed, which helps the growers or breeders in making decision with respect to designing new breeds based on the field data and historical growth, bunch components analysis and yield data of the parent trees, while avoiding a need for planting all new breeds to evaluate the growth and yield of the new breeds. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method for selecting a plant breed, comprising the steps of: inputting multiple traits of at least one plant of each of at least two breeds at regular intervals, storing the inputted traits, selecting a trait of said plant, analysing the selected trait and designing a new breed based on the analysis. To analyse the selected trait, one or combination of yield analysis, bunch analysis and vegetative measurement analysis is conducted for each plant, and one or more pairs of plants are identified as parents, if the selected trait of the identified plants is greater than a first threshold.

In a preferred embodiment, the plant is an oil palm tree, and the trait is at least one of yield trait, an agronomic trait, physiological trait, and biotic and abiotic stress tolerance or resistance trait. A profile is created for each plant, and the inputted traits of each plant are stored under the corresponding profile.

The new breed is designed by evaluating a value of the selected trait of a progeny of each pair of parents based on the recorded traits of the corresponding parents and then selecting the progeny as the new breed if the evaluated value is greater than a second threshold. By this way, the present invention enables a breeder to evaluate yield performance or performance of any other traits of interests of the new breed without a need for planting and monitoring all the new breeds of the combination of different crosses of a crossing matrix of a series of parental palms (paternal & maternal palms), and thus helping in making a strategic decision whether to continue or terminate a breeding selection process, while saving a plenty of time and resources.

Additional aspects, features and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon consideration of the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention in conjunction with the drawings listed below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWING

The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the present disclosure, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the present disclosure.

FIGURE 1 displays a flow diagram of the method for selecting a plant breed, in accordance with the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIGURE 2 displays a block diagram of the system for selecting a plant breed, in accordance with the first embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Detailed description of preferred embodiments of the present invention is disclosed herein. It should be understood, however, that the embodiments are merely exemplary of the present invention, which may be embodied in various forms. Therefore, the details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as the basis for the claim and for teaching one skilled in the art of the invention. The numerical data or ranges used in the specification are not to be construed as limiting.

The following detailed description of the preferred embodiments will now be described in accordance with the attached drawings.

The present invention relates to a method and system for selecting a plant breed, wherein performance of a new breed is evaluated based on the recorded traits of the corresponding parents of a series of parental palms in a crossing matrix. By this way, the present invention enables a breeder to make a strategic decision whether to continue or terminate a breeding selection process without a need for planting and monitoring ail the new breeds in the crossing matrix comprising a series of parental palms (paternal & maternal palms), which saves a plenty of time and resources.

FIGURE 1 shows a flow diagram of the method for selecting a plant breed, in accordance with the first embodiment of the present invention. The method comprises: inputting multiple traits of a plant of each of breeds at regular intervals in a data inputting device (11), storing the inputted traits in a storage device (12), selecting a trait of said plant (13), analysing the selected trait (14) and designing a new breed based on the analysis (15). In the exemplary embodiment, the plant is an oil palm tree, and the trait is an agronomic trait, yield trait, physiological trait and disease tolerance trait. To analyse the selected trait, one of yield analysis, bunch analysis, vegetative measurement and gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) analysis is conducted for each plant, and one or more pairs of plants are identified as parents, if the selected trait of the identified plants is greater than a first threshold. For example, a breeder may select an average oil extraction rate of each fruit bunch as the trait to be analysed, and then the trees with an average oil extraction rate 19% above the selected rate are identified as parents.

The new breed is designed by evaluating a value of the selected trait of a progeny of each pair of parents based on the recorded traits of the corresponding parents, and selecting the progeny as the new breed, if the evaluated value is greater than a second threshold. For example, the average oil extraction rate of fruits of a progeny of each pair of parents is evaluated based on the recorded average oil extraction rate of both the corresponding parent trees. Then, the progeny is selected as the new breed and the likelihood of the performance in term of the average oil extraction rate is predicted high and is at least identical or greater than the average oil extraction rate of both parents.

Further, in a breeding selection process, the breeder controls pollination by collecting necessary pollens from the male parent to enable fertilization in the female parent. Seeds resulting from the pollination are moved to a nursery for germination, and finally, seedlings are moved to field planting, wherein an arrangement and plan of trial of the breed are finalized. Growth of the plants is monitored further breeding process, and the palms will serve as mother palm for seed production, subsequently seeds are released for commercial sales.

FIGURE 2 shows a system for selecting a plant breed, in accordance with the first embodiment of the present invention. The system (20) comprises at least one data inputting device (21), at least one storage device (22) connected to the data inputting device (21), a user input device (23), at least one analysis unit (24) connected to the storage device (22) and the user input device (23), and a designing unit (25) connected to the analysis unit (24).

The data inputting device (21) inputs multiple traits of the plants (2) of each of breeds at regular intervals, wherein the data inputting device (21) is a handheld device installed with a software application for manually inputting the traits of the plants. In an alternate embodiment, the data inputting device (21) may include multiple sensors for automatically reading the traits of the plants. For example, the sensor may be an image sensor for capturing images of multiple fruits in each plant, wherein weight of each fruit is obtained by analyzing the corresponding images. Further, an identification (ID) tag (not shown) is coupled to each plant, such that the traits are inputted along with details of the ID tag. The ID tab can be a radio frequency ID (RFID) tag, barcode tag, magnetic film tag and the like.

The storage device (22) e.g. database, is connected to the data inputting device (21) through a wireless or wired connection. In alternate embodiment, the data inputting device (21) is a handheld device carried to the plantation for inputting data and connected to the storage device (22) after completing the inputting process. The storage device (22) receives and stores the inputted traits, wherein the storage device (22) creates a profile for each ID tag and stores the received traits under the profile. Each profile may include information regarding the corresponding plant (2) such as cross type, location, parents, age and the like.

Even though, in the above embodiment, the data inputting device (21), storage device (22), user input device (23), analysis unit (24) and the designing unit (25) are shown to be individual components of the system (2), in an alternate embodiment, one or more of the above can be combined to together as a single component. For example, the data inputting device (21), storage device (22) and user input device (23) may be included in a single handheld device that can be carried to plantation for collecting data. Further, the analysis unit (24) and the designing unit (25) may formed as a cloud computing device. By this way, the handheld device can be connected to the cloud computing device through internet and the analysis process and designing process can be executed in the cloud computing device. This allows multiple small-time farmers or breeders to share the system.

Since the designing unit (25) predicts the traits of a progeny of each pair of parents based on the recorded traits of the corresponding parents, thus avoiding a need for planting all new breeds of the crossing matrix to predict the growth and yield of the new breeds, which helps the farmers or breeders in making strategic decision whether to continue or terminate the breeding selection process, while saving a plenty time and resources. Furthermore, apart from oil palm plantation, the present invention is applicable for other plantations such as coconut and date palm for perennial crops, or other crops such as tea, coffee, rubber, fruit, cotton, cocoa, sugarcane and the like.

It is to be understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular example embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" may be intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. The terms "comprises", "comprising", “including”, and “having” are inclusive and therefore specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

It is also to be understood, however, that even though numerous characteristics and advantages of the present invention have been set forth in the foregoing description, together with details of the structure and function of the invention, the disclosure is illustrative only. Changes may be made in the details, especially in matters of shape, size, and arrangement of parts within the principles of the invention to the full extent indicated by the broad general meaning of the terms in which the appended claims are expressed. It is further to be understood that use of the expression “at least” or“at least one” suggests the use of one or more elements, as the use may be in one of the embodiments to achieve one or more of the desired objects or results.

While the foregoing describes various embodiments of the disclosure, other and further embodiments of the disclosure may be devised without departing from the basic scope thereof. The scope of the disclosure is determined by the claims that follow. The disclosure is not limited to the described embodiments, versions or examples, which are included to enable a person having ordinary skill in the art to make and use the disclosure when combined with information and knowledge available to the person having ordinary skill in the art.