(Internal) Characterizing the environmental contributors to agricultural trait variation

Advisor: Lewis Lukens, Plant Agriculture

Proposed co-advisor: TBD

In Ontario as in most jurisdictions across the world, new crop varieties are evaluated against older crop varieties every year. In this way, new varieties that are superior to the old can be utilized by growers. Varieties are evaluated by growing them in multiple locations across the province and then measuring traits such as grain yield. We have crop performance data spanning decades across Ontario locations. For example, we have yield for cultivar X in Guelph in 2020, and tens of thousands of similar datapoints. The objective of this project is to explore how environmental components of location, such as weather, soil type, latitude, and longitude explain trait variation. The project will explore different ways of summarizing environmental data and building and evaluating predictive models. The aim is to predict future crop performances given future environmental conditions.

This project is suitable for one or two semesters. The student is required to occasionally be on-site.

Knowledge/Skills

Bioinformatics coding skills