Texas, USA
June 22, 2026
Texas Tech plant scientists are partnering with researchers in India to help plant breeders develop hardier wheat and rice varieties using artificial intelligence and advanced sensing technologies.
By combining expertise in crop breeding, artificial intelligence, remote sensing and predictive analytics, the team hopes to accelerate the development of wheat and rice varieties better equipped to withstand environmental stress.
The two-year initiative, “AI-enabled high-throughput phenotyping for accelerated breeding in wheat and rice,” is supported through the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC), a flagship program of India’s Ministry of Education that fosters international research partnerships and scientific innovation.
The project brings together researchers from Texas Tech’s Department of Plant & Soil Science and Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), one of India’s premier agricultural research institutions, in an effort to transform how breeders identify crops capable of thriving under increasingly difficult environmental conditions.
For Dinesh Saini, a research assistant professor in Texas Tech’s Department of Plant & Soil Science and the project’s principal investigator, the stakes extend well beyond scientific advancement.
“Weather-resilient crops are essential to ensuring future food security,” Saini said. By combining expertise in crop breeding, artificial intelligence, remote sensing and predictive analytics, he said, the team hopes to accelerate the development of wheat and rice varieties better equipped to withstand environmental stress while strengthening long-term research ties between the United States and India.
The Texas Tech team includes Oluwatola Adedeji, whose work focuses on UAV-based remote sensing, geospatial analytics and machine learning applications in agriculture, and Krishna Jagadish, the Thornton Distinguished Chair, professor and interim chair of the Department of Plant & Soil Science. Widely recognized for his research in crop stress physiology, Jagadish has spent much of his career studying how staple crops respond to heat and water scarcity.
The team from India is led by Puja Srivastava, a senior wheat breeder at PAU, along with a multidisciplinary group of researchers specializing in wheat and rice breeding, genetics and crop improvement.
At the heart of the collaboration is the development of an artificial intelligence-integrated high-throughput phenotyping platform capable of evaluating thousands of breeding lines with unprecedented speed.
Using multispectral and thermal imaging systems, field-based sensors and machine learning algorithms, the platform will enable researchers to capture and analyze plant traits that once required extensive manual observation.
Scientists involved in the project believe the technology could dramatically reduce the time and labor required for field evaluations while improving breeders’ ability to identify superior crop varieties. The effort reflects a broader convergence of agriculture and artificial intelligence; disciplines increasingly viewed as essential to meeting the food demands of a growing global population amid a changing weather pattern.
That intersection of technology and agriculture is one reason Texas Tech leaders see the collaboration as particularly significant.
“AI is transforming how we approach complex scientific challenges,” said Noureddine Abidi, Texas Tech’s interim associate vice president for research and innovation. He said the project demonstrates the university’s commitment to applying emerging technologies to accelerate discovery, strengthen international partnerships and develop solutions that contribute to global food security.
Beyond its research goals, the initiative places a strong emphasis on workforce development and international knowledge exchange.
Graduate students from PAU will participate in funded research residencies at Texas Tech, where they will receive advanced training in AI-enabled phenotyping, drone technologies, machine learning and geospatial analytics. Texas Tech faculty members will also travel to India to collaborate with PAU researchers on workshops, field demonstrations and hands-on training programs designed to help plant breeders integrate artificial intelligence into modern crop improvement efforts.
More than 20 scientists and doctoral researchers are expected to receive training through the program.
Jagadish said the partnership demonstrates how international collaborations can help address challenges that transcend national borders. “Global challenges require global solutions,” he said. By bringing together complementary expertise from Texas Tech and PAU, the collaboration is designed not only to accelerate innovation in crop improvement but also to build lasting international research capacity.
The technologies and training developed through the project, he added, will help prepare the next generation of scientists to work at the intersection of agriculture, artificial intelligence and data science.
Researchers expect the initiative to produce open-access datasets, AI-powered decision-support tools, prototype phenotyping systems, peer-reviewed publications and training resources that can be shared with agricultural scientists around the world.
The collaboration is also expected to generate breeder-ready technologies aimed at improving the efficiency, precision and scalability of crop breeding programs, helping researchers respond more quickly to the challenges facing agriculture in the decades ahead.
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