Advantages and limitations of using near infrared spectroscopy in plant phenomics applications

The utilization of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as analytical method has been underestimated largely to its complex and unresolvable spectra. Nevertheless, the past 25 years have witnessed a growing interest for non-invasive and high throughput measurements in the field, glasshouse and in the laboratory to measure different traits of importance in crops and plants (e.g. phenomics). Developments in this field were possible by incorporating different techniques most of them belonging to the family of vibrational spectroscopy (e.g. near and mid infrared spectroscopy, Raman, and hyperspectral imaging). However, there are still several issues and challenges that need to be addressed and understood before and during the application of these techniques. This paper provides with an overview of the advantages and limitations on the use of NIR spectroscopy (contact and hyperspectral) as high throughput phenotyping tool.