Focus areas

• Plant & Microbial Systems & Models
• Animal Behaviour & Welfare
• Environmental Stress Adaptation

This theme encompasses:

• anything to do with plants including plant physiology, genetics and development. It includes both model and crop species and all aspects of crop breeding, productivity, crop protection (pathogen and pest management). In addition, all aspects of soil as a major resource (ecosystem services) including soil formation, function, health and includes the impacts of agriculture on the environment and environmental protection.
• all aspects of animal welfare and productivity for farmed/managed animals. It can include environmental impacts of such livestock including water quality, as well as any concerns relating to downstream food chain issues such as microbiological safety and food quality.
• molecular research into how plants, animals, and microorganisms are affected by environmental stresses, including pathways for stress adaptation.

Dr Hari Ram Upadhayay (Rothamsted Research)

Dr Hari Ram Upadhayay

Hari Ram is a catchment system scientist interested in determining the sources of sediment and associated diffuse pollutants using state-of-the-art stable isotopes (bulk and compound-specific) and Bayesian mixing modelling. More broadly, he is interested in human-induced land use changes and wildfire impacts on the sources, transport pathways and turnover rates of organic carbon, diffuse pollution budgets and overall landscape degradation. He has extensive knowledge of the biogeochemistry of specific vegetation markers (e.g. long-chain fatty acids) in soil and aquatic systems and a broad understanding of several catchment processes relevant for managing agriculture diffuse pollution. He is a member of Professor Adie Collins' team and is currently working on combining isotopic, optical and geochemical properties of organic carbon and fine-grained sediment for understanding the spatial and temporal mismatch between on-farm management and landscape scale responses in the context of policy targets.

• Exhibition stall in Einstein's Garden, Green Man Festival - to raise public awareness of the importance of plants, pollinators and ‘plugging yourself into a greener world’
• Coding camp, Devon - sharing knowledge and experience of R programming for data analysis and graphics
• Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) conference, Seville - international conference focusing on animal, plant and cell biology, with all students having the opportunity to present their work
• Riverford Organic Farm visit, Devon - discussions with the founder (Guy Woodford) about organic farming and the future of UK farming, with a behind-the-scenes tour

You can read further information about some of these events on our news page:

• SWBio DTP Agriculture and Environment Research Theme Events 2019 >>
• Promoting Plant Power: Green Man Festival >>