Phenotypic Differentiation Between Highland and Coastal Quinoa Under Cold Stress Conditions.

Highland quinoa accessions (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) showed beneficial germination under cold stress at 4.4°C, with strong agreement between manual and Mask R CNN image scoring.

• Why it matters: Early sowing cold can delay emergence and reduce establishment, limiting quinoa performance in European and Mediterranean marginal lands.
• What they did: Sixty accessions from highland and coastal ecotypes were grown in South-Western Germany across three sowing dates (S1 late winter, S2 early spring, S3 spring), and germination was also tested in the lab at 4.4°C versus 18.3°C using manual scoring and Mask R Convolutional Neural Network image analysis.
• The result: Highland types had earlier seedling emergence and higher emergence percentages under low-temperature conditions, and early sowing in S1 produced the highest average seed yield per plot (64 g) versus S2 (46 g) and S3 (35 g).

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