The Second Latin-American Conference on Plant Phenotyping and Phenomics (II LAPhPB) has opened registration and abstract submissions until April 30. The meeting, which is going to gather national scientists abd Latin-American and international researchers with expertise in the area, will be held at Embrapa Instrumentation (São Carlos, SP, Brazil), on September 20 - 22. The scientific abstracts must be submitted via http://www.cnpdia.embrapa.br/eventos/laphpb/,a webpage where those who are interested can find information about the conference and the procedure to send the abstracts. The address also brings instructions on formats and the due dates for those interested in only participating in the event without making a presentation The conference is aimed at students, lecturers, researchers; electronic, mechanical, agricultural and materials engineers; physicists, chemists, biologists, physiologists, plant scientists, computer scientists, biotechnology scientists, among other areas; and parties interested in the area of new methods of plant phenotyping and phenomics. Heading the organization of the conference, the researcher Paulo Sérgio de Paula Herrmann Jr. says that the conference proposes to give continuity to the themes addressed in the first event, held in Chile, in 2015, and establish conditions that are conducive to laying solid foundations in the country and in Latin America for the so-called new phenotyping or new applied plant phenotyping and phenomics methods (NPPM), which adopt more dynamic, fast and precise procedures. The NPPM comprise non-invasive techniques from several areas of knowledge to quantify plant properties and the plant-environment relationship, both in time as in space. The new concepts include the development and application of instrumentation, computer science, bioinformatics, and automation in order to make plant breeding possible in a complex, changing environment. The researcher explains that breeding programs based on traditional methods, such as genotypic screening, which analyzes the genotype x environment interaction with regard to a particular trait, require the application of new non-invasive methods and multidisciplinarity in view of the need for extensive characterization of phenotype, structure and function of the plants exposed to a dynamic and complex environment. Coordinator of the Brazilian Phenotyping Network, created in 2014, Herrmann believes that the use of the new methods and advances in common protocols, genotyping tools and precision agriculture can contribute to halving the time between research developed in laboratories and the introduction of new developments in the fields, which is currently estimated in 10 years. The quantitative assessment of plant structures and their functions allows the transfer of the results from basic research to practical agriculture and agribusiness", he asserts. Vanguard While in Europe, Oceania and North America new methods of plant phenotyping have started to be used in the development of grain crops in the last ten years, in Latin America, an important exporter of food and raw materials, the same has not occurred yet. Herrmann comments that the use of this new concept in breeding programs for other species is almost nonexistent in the whole world. "It is urgent to advance with the new plant phenomics or phenotyping approach on important species in Latin America. Many of such species include grains, fruits and vegetables that currently support or can potentially support export markets with significance", he stated. Translation: Mariana de Lima Medeiros