From the 27th to the 30th of September, AgriFoRwArdS CDT student Karoline Heiwolt attended the 7th International Plant Phenotyping Symposium (IPPS) in Wageningen (NL) to present her work on ‘Temporal Registration of Plant Parts in 3D ‘. Karoline was joined by Yoon Cho, a PhD student in crop science at the Lincoln Agri-Robotics (LAR) centre.

The IPPS is an international conference, open to researchers and industry representatives from around the world, which brings together a multidisciplinary community of plant biologists, ecologists, engineers, agronomists and computer scientists.

This year’s event was held at the Wageningen International Conference Center in the Netherlands and covered a wide variety of themes around plant phenotyping, including sessions on climate change, microbiome interactions, sensors, robotics and automation. Across four days, the conference featured 7 themed sessions with prominent keynote speakers and cutting-edge research from all over the world, a formal conference dinner and party, many engaging coffee break chats, poster discussions, and plenty of opportunities for casual networking in the evenings.

On Wednesday, Karoline gave a spotlight presentation on her poster titled ‘Using statistical shape spaces for temporal registration of leaves in 3D’, followed by a poster session. Here is what Karoline said about the experience:

“I really enjoyed having the opportunity to present at IPPS this year. It was an interesting challenge to summarise my research and to capture the audience’s interest in a spotlight talk of only 80 seconds. I was very happy to receive a lot of interest in my work and I had the opportunity to speak to loads of people from different research or industry backgrounds, who came up to my poster with interesting questions, suggestions, and engaging discussions.

During this session, I met researchers from all around the globe who wanted to connect, share data, and potentially collaborate in the future. After the poster session, Yoon and I went on to a casual dinner with a group of researchers from the Universities of Bonn (Germany), Michigan State (USA), and the Boyce Thompson Institute in New York (USA). It was a very successful networking activity for me that has given me lots of new ideas.”

On Thursday, the session titled ‘Sensors, Robotics & Automation’ featured some familiar faces and friends of the CDT. The session was chaired by Tony Pridmore, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham and Director of PhenomUK, who also gave a keynote presentation at the AgriFoRwArdS CDT Annual Conference in 2021. The keynote talk was delivered by Professor Cyrill Stachniss from the University of Bonn, Spokesperson of the German Cluster of Excellence ‘PhenoRob’. He also gave a talk at the University of Lincoln in 2019 on Robotic Perception for Agricultural Environments, which Cohort 1 students will remember.

In the evening, the hosts organised an excellent Conference Dinner for all attendees at Burgers Zoo in Arnhem.

“We were treated to a private tour of several eco-displays of the zoo, before enjoying an excellent buffet dinner. I especially enjoyed seeing the Mangrove, with its many butterflies, manatees, and crabs. The evening ended in a lively party with lots of live music and dancing.”

For Karoline, this was the first application-focused conference and with around 400 attendees the first large international event she was able to attend in person in a long time.

“For me, the event was a huge success. I definitely recommend engaging with researchers from other disciplines. I often work alongside other roboticists and computer vision scientists, so it was very refreshing to receive input from the application side of my research. Connecting with biologists, breeders, and agronomists has been incredibly helpful and eye-opening. Many thanks to the International Plant Phenotyping Network, Wageningen University & Research, and the Netherlands Plant Eco-Phenotyping Centre for hosting a very enjoyable event.”

Blog Credit

A huge thank you to Karoline for putting this blog post together and taking the time to share her experiences of travelling, presenting and taking part in IPPS 2022. Learning from others is hugely beneficial for all students. Thanks Karoline for allowing us to do it from one of the best!

Do you want to get involved in the CDT?

If you are interested in learning more about what we do and if you share a passion for agriculture and technology then go to our AgriFoRwArdS CDT website to see more about our research, how you can be involved and how to apply to be a student in the program.