Standardized description of plant phenotyping/genotyping data is essential to ensure that data are findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable (FAIR principles). The use of controlled vocabularies in plant data description was presented and discussed in the context of a tutorial given by Inês Chaves (Forest Biotech Lab - iBET/ITQB NOVA) to the PhD students of the ITQB International PhD Program in Plant Sciences “ Plants for Life”.