Ji Zhou
Head of Data Sciences Department
Research group: Artificial intelligence and data sciences
Biography
Ji Zhou (周济) is Head of the Data Sciences Department at NIAB. He is an expert in multi-scale plant phenotyping, computer vision (CV) based trait analysis, IoT, and artificial intelligence (AI) modelling. Since his appointment at NIAB in early 2020, he and his collaborators have been jointly contributing to the plant research community worldwide, including AI and CV powered analytic solutions for assessing seed quality and vigour (e.g. SeedGerm), screening nitrogen use efficiency wheat varieties using LiDAR (CropQuant-3D), performing drone phenotyping to quantify growth-related trait for crop improvement (AirMeasurer), establishing ultra-scale yield prediction for lettuces (AirSurf), and monitoring wheat growth and yield formation (e.g. CropSight and YieldQuant-Mobile). These studies were enabled by cross-disciplinary research with labs in the UK (e.g. the University of Cambridge), France (e.g. INRAe and the University of Angers), Japan (the Tokyo University), and China (the Chinese Academy of Sciences).
Ji is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB), a core member of PhenomUK, an associate editor for journals such as Horticulture Research and Plant Phenomics. Since 2013, he has published 30+ research articles (both English and Chinese) in leading academic journals. Moreover, Ji works closely with breeding and growing companies such as Bayer Crop Science, Limagrain, Syngenta and the POME consortium. He holds a Professorship (chair) at the Nanjing Agricultural University, course lecturer and project supervisor for MPhil in Crop Sciences, computer science undergraduates at the University of Cambridge. Prior to NIAB, Ji was a project leader at Earlham, a joint research fellow between JIC and TGAC, and a post-doctoral researcher at The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) in Norwich. Before his academic career, he worked in industry for nearly a decade, initially as a bilingual IT professional in Shanghai, then a systems analyst and a project consultant at Aviva UK.
Publications
Publication
The dissection of Nitrogen response traits using drone phenotyping and dynamic phenotypic analysis to explore N responsiveness and associated genetic loci in wheat
Date: 22 December 2023
Contributors: Ding G, Shen L, Dai J, et al., Zhou J
Journal: Plant Phenomics
Publication
AirMeasurer: open-source software to quantify static and dynamic traits derived from multi-seas7on aerial phenotyping to empower genetic mapping studies in rice.
Date: 28 July 2022
Contributors: Sun G, Lu H, et al., Han B*, Zhou J*
Journal: New Phytologist
Publication
Large-scale field phenotyping using LiDAR and CropQuant-3D to measure structural responses in wheat.
Date: 16 July 2021
Contributors: Zhu Y, Sun G, Ding G, et al., Ober E, Zhou J*
Journal: Plant Physiology
Publication
SeedGerm: a cost-effective phenotyping platform for automated seed imaging and machine-learning based phenotypic analysis of crop seed germination
Date: 13 June 2020
Contributors: Colmer J, et al., Penfield S*, Zhou J*
Journal: New Phytologist
Publication
Combining computer vision and deep learning to enable ultra-scale aerial phenotyping and precision agriculture: a case study of lettuce
Date: 1 June 2019
Contributors: Bauer, A., Bostrom, A.G., Ball, J., Applegate, C., Cheng, T., Laycock, S., Rojas, S.M., Kirwan, J. and Zhou, J
Journal: Horticulture Research
Publication
CropSight: a scalable open and distributed data management system for crop phenotyping and IoT based crop management
Date: 31 January 2019
Contributors: Reynolds D, et al., Zhou J*
Journal: GigaScience
Publication
Speed breeding is a powerful tool to accelerate crop research and breeding
Date: 1 January 2018
Contributors: Amy Watson, Sreya Ghosh, Matthew J. Williams, William S. Cuddy, James Simmonds, María-Dolores Rey, M. Asyraf Md Hatta, Alison Hinchliffe, Andrew Steed, Daniel Reynolds, Nikolai M. Adamski, Andy Breakspear, Andrey Korolev, Tracey Rayner, Laura E. Dixon, Adnan Riaz, William Martin, Merrill Ryan, David Edwards, Jacqueline Batley, Harsh Raman, Jeremy Carter, Christian Rogers, Claire Domoney, Graham Moore, Wendy Harwood, Paul Nicholson, Mark J. Dieters, Ian H. DeLacy, Ji Zhou, Cristobal Uauy, Scott A. Boden, Robert F. Park, Brande B. H. Wulff & Lee T. Hickey
Journal: Nature Plants
Publication
Leaf-GP: an open and automated software application for measuring growth phenotypes for arabidopsis and wheat
Date: 22 December 2017
Contributors: Ji Zhou, Christopher Applegate, Albor Dobon Alonso, Daniel Reynolds, Simon Orford, Michal Mackiewicz, Simon Griffiths, Steven Penfield & Nick Pullen
Journal: Plant Methods volume
Publication
Genomic innovation for crop improvement.
Date: 16 March 2017
Contributors: Bevan M. W., Uauy C., Wulff B. B. H., Zhou J., Krasileva K., Clark M. D.
Journal: Nature
Publication
Spatio-Temporal Cellular Dynamics of the Arabidopsis Flagellin Receptor Reveal Activation Status-Dependent Endosomal Sorting
Date: 19 October 2012
Contributors: Martina Beck, Ji Zhou, Christine Faulkner, Daniel MacLean, and Silke Robatzek1
Journal: The Plant Cell
