LIFE's elite research area: Plant biosystems
Future solutions for the biobased society
Soon we will have to produce twice as much food to feed the world’s population. However, we have run out of agricultural land, and natural resources such as clean water and nutrients are scarce. At the same time, we can expect more extreme climate events.
Consequently, there is a greater need than ever before for new agricultural solutions that can ensure the sustainable intensification of food production – also in third world countries. This is the goal for the more than 100 researchers working in LIFE’s elite research area within plant biosystems.
We asked anchorman Professor Jan Kofod Schjørring eight sharp questions about the elite research area:
Where is the research within plant biosystems currently heading as a field?
- How is LIFE contributing to plant biosystems research worldwide?
- Which promising research projects would you otherwise like to mention?
- If the elite research area becomes the projected success in the coming years, what do you hope to achieve?
- How will LIFE students benefit from the elite research area?
- What are your considerations in relation to collaborating with stakeholders such as companies, authorities or others that may have a particular interest in this specific elite research area?
- Where can you follow the elite research area’s results?
- Who is behind the elite research area?
Where is the research within plant biosystems currently heading as a field?
Jan Schjørring: There is considerable global focus on using our knowledge about plants’ genes and the key processes in the soil-plant-atmosphere system to solve the specific challenges we face: To increase the production of foods and bioproducts on a sustainable basis.
What it entails is that in a few years we will have to double how much food and biomass we produce while using less water and fewer nutrients and chemicals. We are running out of land we can cultivate, and we can expect more frequent extreme climate events.
Need for stress-tolerant plants
In other words, the plants we grow need to use existing resources more effectively. However, they also need to be more tolerant in relation to the stress factors to which they are exposed in the fields, which in many locations around the world lack nutrients and are plagued by drought, flooding and pests.
Thus, for researchers, it is more than ever a question of sustainable resource utilisation. We will gather everything we know about this field and continue to expand our knowledge so we have a viable chance of tackling the challenge and avoiding hunger catastrophes.
How is LIFE contributing to plant biosystems research worldwide?
JS: What we are trying to do is to cover the entire chain from molecule to ecosystem, focusing in particular on crop plants.
Through advanced plant breeding, plant nutrition and agroecology, we are working to bolster our existing knowledge about how we can intensify the sustainable production of biomass for food, bioenergy and other bioproducts.
To intensify production, it is vital that we understand the processes that control the reactions of plants to changing and sometimes extreme climate, soil and water conditions as well as the so-called biological interactions: how plant growth is affected by pests and how plants compete with each other for sunlight, water and nutrients.
New and stronger plant species
Specifically, we are making our mark at the moment in relation to translating this knowledge into new and improved plant species. We are working with genetic resources combined with plant breeding and biotechnology to take a targeted approach to developing new genotypes and phenotypes with better productivity, resource utilisation, stress tolerance and characteristics.
Reduced pesticide use
We have just contributed to an article in Science with a number of research results that shed light on the serious threats faced by agriculture and plant breeding in large parts of the world – powdery mildew infection.
We have mapped the genome of the powdery mildew fungus so that we now know more about which genes control the fungal infestation. We have also identified the resistance mechanisms to focus on in the plant to strengthen the plant’s defence. This research work may mean that, in future, we will be able to cultivate crops using fewer pesticides.
JS: We have recently published an article in one of the world’s most cited scientific journals, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), with a project which, in collaboration with a South Korean research group, shows how to boost the content of essential trace minerals in corn.
Here, we have also shown that, using the latest biotechnology, we can significantly increase the bioaccessibility of trace minerals, i.e. how easily trace minerals such as iron and zinc are absorbed by the body.
The results are promising, as about 2 billion people, especially in Asia, suffer from a chronic deficiency of trace minerals such as iron and zinc. This can result in a number of complications and markedly impairs their ability to work as well as their quality of life.
They primarily eat white rice, a food with a low content of iron and zinc, which are also closely bound so they cannot be absorbed.
However, this new research project paves the way for people growing rice in future which has a high and more easily absorbable iron and zinc content, thereby combating malnutrition. The next step now is to test the new rice types in field trials so they can then be approved for actual commercial use.
Plant roots vary greatly
Roots have been the subject of far too little research. We want to remedy this.
Here in the elite research area we have shown that roots are extremely different, both in relation to how deep they extend down into the soil and how they react to different stress factors in the ground, for example drought, salt and nutrient deficiencies.
Specifically, we have revealed that wheat, for example, develops roots in the autumn that grow much deeper than previously thought. This means that, over the winter, the wheat can absorb larger amounts of nitrogen, which would otherwise be leached out into Danish watercourses and lakes.
The authorities require that a significant part of farmers’ wheat fields must be replaced by so-called catch crops which are thought to capture nitrogen more effectively. The latest research results, however, suggest that wheat holds greater potential than previously assumed in relation to reducing nitrogen leaching.
If the elite research area becomes the projected success in the coming years, what do you hope to achieve?
JS: We expect to have made a significant contribution to the development of tomorrow’s crops for the sustainable production of energy and foods.
Our stated ambition is to contribute new knowledge which can be used for sustainably intensifying plant production.
We are also attaching a lot of priority to helping to establish the Copenhagen Plant Science Centre, so that it becomes one of the world’s leading plant research centres. In this context in particular, a lot of importance will be given to having articles published in leading scientific journals and attracting significant grants to retain our strong pool of younger researchers within the elite research area and to recruit new and highly qualified PhD students.
How will LIFE students benefit from the elite research area?
JS: New and promising research in a dynamic environment will always benefit students in the form of exciting teaching and high-quality theses.
The environment will also attract foreign researchers, and we will see a greater exchange of researchers and students from the finest international research environments. This will generate lots of opportunities for inspiring teaching, guidance and, not least, studies abroad.
Tomorrow’s plant production calls for experts
The challenges facing tomorrow’s plant production call for experts with a better insight into the interplay between plant growth, the environment and adjuvants. There are lots of possibilities for developing future cultivation systems with better resource utilisation and higher yields. Together with the students, we must develop modern agronomy as a dynamic and future-oriented discipline.
What are your considerations in relation to collaborating with stakeholders such as companies, authorities or others that may have a particular interest in this specific elite research area?
JS: We already collaborate extensively with a wide range of businesses and authorities within plant breeding, plant production and the environment.
In particular, the elite research area will focus on developing our collaboration with the agricultural sector with a view to solving the challenges facing Danish agriculture.
Moreover, we have just been awarded an innovation prize by Agro Business Parks for inventing PhytoPhos – a device which measures plant-available phosphorus more accurately in soil.
Finally, the spin-off company Nutrinostica has successfully developed a device for diagnosing nutrient deficiencies in plants, based on basic research from LIFE. This has already proved very beneficial for the agricultural sector.
Where can you follow the elite research area’s results?
In scientific journals and at the AGRECO website: agreco.life.ku.dk/English
About the Copenhagen Plant Science Centre:
The winner of the project competition to design the facility that will house the Copenhagen Plant Science Center at LIFE – The Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Copenhagen has now been found. Read the full news story.
Kirsten Jenlev, - last update:29 September 2011