There was a time when we used to take one or more field crews and we would measure trees. As in getting dbh with a tape, height with a clinometer, form on a scale from 1-6 or 1-9 or whatever. Sometimes we would extract increment cores or use a time-of-flight tool to get velocity, etc.
Today we phenotype trees: dbh with a tape, height with a vertex, form on a scale from 1-6 or 1-9 or whatever. Sometimes we use a resistograph for density or use a time-of-flight tool to get velocity, etc. Perhaps we add a drone with LIDAR or a hyperspectral camera, and we are high-throughput phenotyping.
Before we used to measure environmental variables like aspect and slope for the site, perhaps a soil pit or even setup a weather station in a trial. Then we would look for environmental differences to explain changes of ranking. Today we envirotype collecting the same information and if we do a lot of it we are into enviromics.
As many other activities, the breeding world has experienced word inflation. Good is not enough anymore: excellent or outstanding must be the norm.
We must remember though, that we are still collecting similar or identical information, with pretty much the same purpose: identifying the best individuals accounting for environmental conditions.
(Inspired by a meeting with lots of acronyms for doing the same thing 😁. By the way, I like carrots)
