Reducing environmental footprint by improving phosphorous use efficiency. While modern agriculture relies heavily on the use of phosphorous fertilizers, most of them are not used by plants and lost in runoff, resulting in a massive environmental damage through contamination of waterways (termed eutrophication). This project takes advantage of an untapped resource - a unique collection of Tibetan wild barley genotypes, to reveal key traits that confer superior phosphorus use efficiency in wild ba ....Reducing environmental footprint by improving phosphorous use efficiency. While modern agriculture relies heavily on the use of phosphorous fertilizers, most of them are not used by plants and lost in runoff, resulting in a massive environmental damage through contamination of waterways (termed eutrophication). This project takes advantage of an untapped resource - a unique collection of Tibetan wild barley genotypes, to reveal key traits that confer superior phosphorus use efficiency in wild barley and identify appropriate candidate genes and their position on chromosomes for further incorporating these traits into commercial barley cultivars. This will reduce the environmental footprint of modern agricultural practices on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems without compromising food security.Read moreRead less
On the physiology of plant transpiration. This project aims to better understand plant transpiration. It is significant from both a basic and a practical perspective. It intends to solve a conundrum of the biophysics of the evaporative sites within leaves. That is, in dry air, the relative humidity of intercellular air spaces suggests much lower liquid water potentials than those typically measured. At a practical level, the failure to sustain transpiration in dry conditions leads to desiccation ....On the physiology of plant transpiration. This project aims to better understand plant transpiration. It is significant from both a basic and a practical perspective. It intends to solve a conundrum of the biophysics of the evaporative sites within leaves. That is, in dry air, the relative humidity of intercellular air spaces suggests much lower liquid water potentials than those typically measured. At a practical level, the failure to sustain transpiration in dry conditions leads to desiccation and tissue death, and plants differ in this vulnerability. The aim is to apply a novel nanoparticle technique to measure the water potential distribution within the leaf, identify hydraulic resilience attributes, and develop a modern theory of optimal transpiration under varying conditions.Read moreRead less
Harnessing peptide hormone outputs to improve root nodulation’s efficacy. This project aims to transform our understanding of symbiotic nitrogen fixation in legume root nodules. Root nodulation sustainably fixes sizeable amounts of nitrogen to boost crop production worldwide yet its utilisation is waning in favour of using nitrogen fertilisers. The project applies cutting-edge tools to define how two hormone systems boost and limit nitrogen fixation, respectively. The project expects to reveal w ....Harnessing peptide hormone outputs to improve root nodulation’s efficacy. This project aims to transform our understanding of symbiotic nitrogen fixation in legume root nodules. Root nodulation sustainably fixes sizeable amounts of nitrogen to boost crop production worldwide yet its utilisation is waning in favour of using nitrogen fertilisers. The project applies cutting-edge tools to define how two hormone systems boost and limit nitrogen fixation, respectively. The project expects to reveal ways to reconfigure these hormone outputs to improve nodule number and the efficacy of nitrogen fixation. The findings will benefit agriculture by reducing the reliance on costly nitrogen fertilisers, thus mitigating the huge environmental damage they cause, and will provide more sustainable ways to ensure food security.Read moreRead less
A new route to controlling root system architecture and drought tolerance. This project aims to transform our understanding of the relationship between root architecture and water and nitrogen acquisition, factors critical to determining yield. We have discovered that mutants affected in a peptide hormone receptor have unique root architectural features relevant to acquiring water and nitrogen. The mutants are drought tolerant and their roots are nitrate insensitive. The project aims to define t ....A new route to controlling root system architecture and drought tolerance. This project aims to transform our understanding of the relationship between root architecture and water and nitrogen acquisition, factors critical to determining yield. We have discovered that mutants affected in a peptide hormone receptor have unique root architectural features relevant to acquiring water and nitrogen. The mutants are drought tolerant and their roots are nitrate insensitive. The project aims to define the receptor’s genetic outputs and expects to uncover new ways to improve water and nitrate acquisition and determine if our findings apply to crops. The application of these findings will reduce the severe environmental damage caused by poor nitrogen fertiliser uptake and provide sustainable ways to ensure food security.Read moreRead less