The Free Air Carbon dioxide Enrichment facility of the JKI (JKI-FACE) is located in Braunschweig, Germany and it is used to study genotype x environment interactions under field conditions with a range of environmental conditions (elevated CO2, ambient CO2, well-watered, rainfed, drought, biotic stress etc.). The facility consists of four FACE rings (octagons) with a diameter of 15.5 m, in which plants are grown under elevated CO2 in the field. Two Rainout-Shelters with an area of each 12 x 25 m are also available at the experimental field. The Rainout-Shelters automatically move over the plants only during rain events, while maintaining normal microclimatic conditions most of the time. It is possible to set very precise drought stress scenarios in order to record the plant responses.

Both JKI-FACE and Rainout-Shelters are located at the experimental field Braunschweig-Bundesallee. The soil is a Haplic Luvisol with a loamy sand texture. Because of its low water holding capacity, the site is especially suitable for abiotic stress experiments. Besides the monitoring of plant growth, phenology, and the analysis of agronomic traits, we phenotype photosynthesis-related and morphological/structural plant traits at ground level as well as RGB and multispectral imaging at aerial level for example.