Colloquia

Speaker: Dr. Avinash Agarwal (School ofNatural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University)

Topic: Technologies for regulating and monitoring crop quality in controlled-environment farms

Date and Time: 10.05.2022 – 13:00 Uhr

Link: https://igzev-de.zoom.us/j/3370178131

Language: Englisch

Zusammenfassung: 

The past decades have witnessed a remarkable growth in controlled-environment farming (CEF) as a supplement to conventional open-field crop production. A major advantage that CEF offers is the scope of implementing state-of-the-art techniques and devices with relative ease. While years of experience in CEF have helped us identify challenges and scopes of improvement, rapid advancements and easier availability of technology has provided the opportunity to address these issues. In particular, application of LEDs for spectral modulation and implementation of machine vision for real-time crop monitoring have received considerable attention. Years of research has established that light quality plays a crucial role in controlling morphological and physiological traits of plants. Availability of a wide variety of LEDs has enabled us tailor light recipes to boost plant growth and nutritional quality. In addition, development of cost-effective and high-resolution imaging systems, including digital and thermal cameras, has made it possible to monitor plant growth and detect stress with greater accuracy. Here, we will take a peek into how these technologies are implemented and try to identify directions for further research.

Speaker: Dr. Tsu-Wei Chen (Uni Hannover)

Topic: Understanding the dynamics of canopy function in vegetable crops

Date and time: 29.09.2020 – 13:00 Uhr (Hörsaal & Online über Zoom).

Zoom-Link: https://igzev-de.zoom.us/j/3370178131

Summary: 

Knowledge about the dynamic function and physiological mechanisms at the canopy level is necessary for designing strategies to improve vegetable crop performance. In this talk, I will use cucumber and tomato, the most important greenhouse vegetable crops, to show how salinity stress affects architectural and physiological limitations of dry mass production at the canopy level.

To achieve this, two frameworks of functional-structural plant models (FSPM), where the 3D architecture of plants is explicitly described, were constructed, parameterized and evaluated. The first framework was a static architecture model of the cucumber canopy, coupled with a biochemical model of photosynthesis and quantitative limitation analysis of photosynthesis, for scaling up the impacts of physiological processes on limiting photosynthesis from leaf to the whole plant level. Using this framework, the influences of salinity, instantaneous light conditions and their interactions on architectural and physiological limitations in cucumber were systematically and quantitatively analyzed. The second framework, a dynamic FSPM of tomato growth, was used to investigate the impacts of architectural traits on whole plant dry mass production and their interactions with temperature and salinity. We highlight the importance of plant architecture at canopy level in studying the plant responses to the environment and show the merits of FSPM as a heuristic tool.

Venue: Conference room

Time: 1 p.m.

Speaker and title of the presentation: Prof. Marc Wolfram & Dr. Martina Artman

Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), Dresden

„Spatial sustainability science: The IOER research agenda and its intersections with horticulture research“

Abstract:

The Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) in Dresden investigates dynamic interactions between society, ecosystems and built environs at and across multiple spatial scales, as well as options and methods for responsible stewardship towards sustainability. The research is highly interdisciplinary, working across a range of disciplines in the social-, natural- and engineering sciences. It is also transdisciplinary, collaborating closely with stakeholders in the public, private and civil society sectors in knowledge co-production and -transfer. The IOER specifically aims to foster just urban and regional transformations that enable humanity to thrive within a safe ecological operating space. This agenda also entails diverse implications regarding the current and potential future role of horticulture research, considering for instance local food production, environmental quality and conditions, the circular economy, or human-nature relations more generally. Therefore, this presentation will provide a brief introduction and overview of the IOER and its research, focusing specifically on options and opportunities for collaboration with the IGZ.

Venue:

Lecture room Großbeeren

Time:

1 p.m.

Speaker and titles of presentations:

Dr Mohanna Mollavali

´Modulation of trehalose biosynthetic gene expression to improve stress tolerance of tomato´

Dr Roxana Djalali Farahani-Kofoet

‘Impact of Fusarium species on asparagus’

Venue:

IGZ lecture room

Time:

1 p.m.

Speaker and Title of presentation:

Zachary Taylor

“Chloroplast-based production of antimicrobial peptides: potential for plant protection”

Albrecht-Daniel-Thaer-Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences

Humboldt University Berlin

Venue:

Lecture room Großbeeren

Time:

1 p.m.

Speakers and Titles:

Dr. Jörg Rühlmann

`Predicting soil texture information from soil electrical resistivity measurements´

Dr. Swen Meyer

`Estimation of soil texture information using geophysical sensors for agricultural liming – Insights into the pH-BB project´

Venue:

Lecture room Großbeeren

Programme:

10:15 – 12:10 Guest lectures (each with 15 min talk & 5 min questions; in English)

12:10 – 12:30 Discussion of the presented topics

12:30 – 13:15 Lunch

13:15 – 14:00 Tour of the IGZ

14:00 – 15:30+ Discussion on ongoing Projects

Speakers and titles of presentations:

• Prof. Dr. Kai Udert

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich & Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag)

„Urine running in circles“

• Dr. rer. nat. Gerhild Bornemann

DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Köln

„C.R.O.P. – Combined Regenerative Organic food Production“

• Mareike Mauerer

Albrecht Daniel Thaer-Institute an der Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

„The use of recycled nutrients in vegetable production under glass“

• Grace Crain

Group of Plant Nutrition at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences (IAS) at the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS) at ETH Zürich

„Crop production in hydroponics using recycled nutrients and microbial consortia“

Venue:

Lecture room Großbeeren

Time:

1 p.m.

Speaker and Title of the talks:

Dr. Hanna Freudenreich

“Agriculture as a safety net – evidence from Kyrgyzstan”

 

Dr. Ghassan Baliki

„Healthier Children Diets: Baseline Results from School Gardens Experiments in Nepal“

Venue:

Lecture room Großbeeren

Time:

1p.m.

Speaker and title of presentation:

Prof Kerstin Kaufmann

Humboldt University Berlin

“Epigenetic control of gene activation in Arabidopsis flower development”

Abstract:

Developmental switches and cell fate decisions in plants require coordinated changes in the activities of thousands of genes. Concerted activities of transcription factors and epigenetic regulators are essential for spatiotemporal control of gene expression programs. Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) mediates the epigenetic memory of gene silencing in plant development, thereby restricting gene activities to specific cell types and developmental stages. RELATIVE OF EARLY FLOWERING 6 (REF6) is a Jumonji (JMJ)-type histone demethylase that counteracts PRC2-mediated gene silencing in plants. Research in my group recently showed that REF6 and its two close paralogs determine spatial ‘boundaries’ of the repressive histone H3K27me3 mark in the genome, and control the tissue-specific release from PRC2-mediated gene repression. Targeted mutagenesis revealed that these histone demethylases display pleiotropic, redundant functions in plant development, several of which depend on trans factor-mediated recruitment. Thus, JMJ-type histone demethylases restrict repressive chromatin domains, and contribute to tissue-specific gene activation via complementary targeting mechanisms.

Venue:

Lecture room Großbeeren

Time:

1 p.m.

Speaker and title of presentation:

Dr Annette Piorr

Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF)

„Urban and Peri-urban agriculture in the EU“

Abtract:

The presentation will give a state of the art overview on urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture (UPUA), the diversity of phenomena, motivations, distinctive features, benefits and limitations. UPUA is contextualized in relation to societal and economic transformations, EU strategic objectives, policies and regional food system approaches. Using best practice examples, the presentation demonstrates the need for an improved integration of UPUA into the policy agenda across sectors, domains and governance levels.

Venue:

Lecture room Großbeeren

Time:

11 am

Speaker and Title:

Gerald Freymark

Team leader Biochemistry, Rijk Zwaan Breeding, The Netherlands 

“Metabolic differences in chromosome substitution lines of Arabidopsis thaliana received by Reverse Breeding”

Abstract:

Traditionally, hybrid seeds are produced by crossing selected inbred lines. A recent method for haploid production in the model plant A. thaliana (Ravi and Chan, 2010) enabled us to provide a proof of concept for an alternative strategy: Reverse Breeding, a new approach that simplifies meiosis such that homozygous parental lines can be gene-rated from a vigorous hybrid individual (Dirks et al. 2003, 2009). We silenced DMC1, which encodes the meiotic recombination protein DISRUPTED MEIOTIC cDNA1, in hybrids of A. thaliana, so that non-recombined parental chromosomes segregate during meiosis (Wijnker et al. 2008, 2012). We then converted the resulting gametes into adult haploid plants, and subsequently into homozygous diploids, so that each contained half the genome of the original hybrid. From 36 homozygous lines, we were able to identify a complete set of chromosome-substitution lines. Some of those lines were analyzed for metabolic differences by LC-MS.  Among others, several glucosinolates have already been identified to decrease in one of the chromosome substitution lines. Elucidating the genetic differences between the parental lines can explain those metabolic changes.

Venue:

Lecture room Großbeeren

Time:

1 p.m.

Speaker and title of presentation:

Prof Tilman Brück

“Weather Shocks, Nutrition and Child Health: Evidence from the Life in Kyrgyzstan Study”

Venue:

Lecture room Großbeeren

Time:

1 p.m.

Seakers and titles of talks:

Prof Susanne Baldermann,Research group 3.2

“Carotenoids in pak choi – Changes along the food chain”

 

Dr Susanne Neugart, Junior research group

“UV-A and flavonoids an unknown relation based on the interplay of UVR8 and Crytochomes”