A major hypothesis of many research projects performed in the team is that developmental plasticity and carbon source-sink relationships in the plant are major levers for its adaptation to the environment.  This is addressed by combining analysis and multi-scale modeling of the phenotype (tissue, organ, plant, fields). In this context, we are closely linked with AGAP Institut platforms platforms such as Platform of Histocytology and Vegetal cell Imaging  - PHIV, Biochemical Phenotyping - PPB and Ecophysiology.

Through numerous collaborative projects, the team combines experimental activities in the field (near Montpellier in Mauguio or Lavalette, in Camargue, but also, and especially, in the field of partnership projects in the South: in Madagascar, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Colombia and Cambodge among others) and/or in controlled conditions (growth-chambers of the CIRAD ABIOPHEN platform) or semi-controlled conditions (greenhouse of the CIRAD ABIOPHEN platform). 

All the development of methods and software components for plant phenotyping are integrated within the OpenAlea platform (https://openalea.gforge.inria.fr), whose development is coordinated by the team. The expected outputs are (i) models and algorithms for the management and analysis of phenotyping data as well as the simulation of the spatio-temporal development of plants, (ii) software components implementing models and algorithms and (iii) key biological or agronomic results obtained on this basis.

PhenoMEn is currently, but not exclusively, involved in the study of the following cropping systems

• low-input rainfed rice (Madagascar, DP SPAD) and irrigated rice (Latin America, Asia, DP ASEA; Camargue) ;
• in dry areas in West Africa (DP IAVAO, ASAP) and alternative intensive systems in Europe for the development of multipurpose sorghum (biomass, grain, sugar);
• intensive or small-scale farming for climate adaptation of oil palm (Asia, Africa: PT-SMART; CIGE).