r/Agronomy • u/ninepintcoggie • Jun 12 '24

Looking for Labs focusing on Breeding Resistance to Climate-Change Related Abiotic Stress

Hey folks, I’m starting my PhD search in Plant Biology and I’m looking specifically for programs focusing on breeding resistance to climate change related abiotic stressors (drought, flood, heat, salt, etc) into food crops.  Anyone know any PIs or labs or schools with a focus on this?  I’m looking at American and European schools, but really my only location restriction is that I can only speak English.  I just finished my masters in Plant Biology with a focus on breeding and did my thesis work on hazelnuts, but would be willing to work on pretty much any crop!  Thinking about how climate change is going to affect our food system keeps me up at night, so I’m looking to do my part.

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u/wilcojus Jun 12 '24

Wageningen Univeristy in the Netherlands might have something in that area. My work sent me over from the US last spring to take an advanced agronomy course and we met some of the people working on plant breeding. My entire final group project was developing a plan for a commercial potato farm to adapt to climate change over the next 20 years. It’s a cutting edge school that definitely has climate change mitigation and adaptation all throughout its agronomy/plant sciences/breeding courses.

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u/ninepintcoggie Jun 13 '24 edited Jun 13 '24

That's awesome! Do you remember any of the people you met? Feel free to DM me if you don't want to post their names here.
It'd be a dream if I could go to Wageningen, they're doing such cool stuff there. And that project is exactly the kind of stuff I want to work on, we need to prep food crops for climate change ASAP

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u/wilcojus Jun 13 '24

I don’t have any specific names, but it wouldn’t hurt to reach out to the university and start the conversation. They have a super robust masters and PhD program. I’m sure their website has the contacts to get you started.

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u/ninepintcoggie Jun 13 '24

I've spent a good bit of time snooping around their website, they're doing some awesome stuff there. Unfortunately, the labs that seem to be focusing specifically on climate change stuff haven't been producing any articles since 2016 at the soonest and all their PhDs graduated in 2020 or earlier, it makes me a little nervous.

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u/wilcojus Jun 13 '24

I’d still reach out, if they don’t have something they may be able to direct you to another university with a program that would fit your interests.