Climate Change Effects on Plant Health

Climate Change Effects to Plant Health is a multidisciplinary project on climate change effects to interactions between crops and their fungal diseases. The plants are cultivated in Risø DTU’s
advanced climate change phytotron that allows for precise imitating of climate scenarios.
 
View into one of the six large growth chambers in RERAF shows barley infected with foliar diseases

We analyze effects of the most important climatic factors, CO2, ozone, temperature and drought, in combination and alone on plant growth and disease resistance, to learn about climate specific effects on host-plant physiology and disease resistance mechanisms. We study host-disease interactions at different levels from genome over transcriptome to histology, physiology and phenotype interactions. Selected crop and their foliar diseases are analysed.
 
The novelty of the project is that host-disease effects are studied:
  • from genome to yield parameters
  • under selection pressure with combinations of elevated CO2, ozone, temperature and drought
  • in important Danish crop plants infected with their present and expected future diseases
 
Participants:
The project is a collaboration between Risø DTU and KU Life (Department of Plant Biology and Biotechnology)
 
Role:
The experiments are performed in the advanced RERAF climate phytotron at Risø DTU (http://www.risoe.dtu.dk/en/business_relations/Products_Services/Risk_Assessment/BIO_RERAF/introduction.aspx ). Besides being responsible for the development and running of the RERAF facility, Risø DTU also contribute to the project with physiological and molecular analysis.

Resources:
The project is funded by the Danish Research Council-FTP, and by Risø DTU and KU Life.

Duration:
The project runs from 2008 through 2011.

Employees involved:
Rikke Bagger Jørgensen (Risø DTU project responsible), Teis Mikkelsen (RERAF responsible), Georg Frenck (Ph.D. student), Lis Brandt (gardener), Bente Anni Andersen (molecular and physiological analyses), Poul Therkild Sørensen (technical assistance), Nina Wiese Thomsen (RERAF technical support), Esben Højrup (RERAF technical support), Allan Murphy (RERAF technical support)

Student projects:
A series of student projects are offered in connection to the project.

Experiments are performed in the climate phytotron RERAF.

 

Page updated  by   11.10.2010


Rikke Bagger Jørgensen
Senior scientist
Biosystems (BIO)
Dir tel+45