60-110% more food will be needed by 2050
Research on this crop is of greater importance to feeding the world than research on any other crop.
Rice feeds nearly half the world's human population
Among the most productive and most important agricultural systems in the world, are governed by NH4+-nitrogen. Rice is an NH4+ specialist.
Irrigated Rice Fields
Cover story featuring our work on rice as a “life-changing discovery”.
Toronto Life Magazine

Research Statement

Declining soil fertility, increasing soil salinisation, and a burgeoning human population have led to severe strains on the world’s agricultural systems.

 

A key factor in the relief from such strains is the better understanding of plant responses to soil nutrients and toxicants, and the application of this understanding to the improvement of cultivars and farming practices.

 

Our laboratory seeks to directly engage in this urgent mission, by use of a combination of physiological approaches designed to address questions of ion acquisition and stress tolerance at cellular and whole-plant levels, in the world’s most important plant species.

Featured Work

The Conversation Between Plants and Soil

Press coverage of our articles on the modes of communication between plant roots and soil microbes by root exudates that influence nitrogen transformation reactions in soil and the degree of nitrogen loss to the environment (Sun et al., 2016, New Phytologist 212,646; Coskun et al., 2017, Nature Plants 3, 1; Coskun et al.Trends in Plant Science 22, 661).

Nitrogen Source Preference

North American mixed conifer/deciduous forest presents a mosaic of nitrogen sources – NH4+ and NO3 alternate on patches and as a function of succession (Kronzucker et al., 1997, Nature 385,59).

Mathematical Modelling of Flux

Mathematical description of tracer flux from roots to shoots in plants (Britto & Kronzucker, 2001, New Phytologist 150, 37).

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