The May 2022 edition of the PlantLink Newsletter contains a welcome for our new coordinator Anna Maňourová, information about a large number of meetings and courses including the Fascination of Plants Day on 18 May, as well as new positions for PhDs and postdocs.

Newsletter Contents

Welcome to our new coordinator Anna Maňourová!
Join us for the Fascination of Plants Day 18 May!
Sign up for PlantLink day “New plant products” 5 October!
Seminar on Advancement of biofortification and tropical crops, 5 May
SLU Grogrund webinar update on Resistance breeding for healthy crops, 23 May
The biennial SPPS conference is on Svalbard!
3rd PlantEd Conference – Germany, 5-7 Sept 2022
27th NJF Congress– Onward in Agriculture
ELLS annual student conference 23-24 September in Prague
NordPlant annual meeting, 30 November
PhD NOVA course: “Phenotyping Technologies in Plant-Environment Interactions – Common Data Standards and Omics Technologies in Phenotyping”
Postdoctoral fellow in Bioinformatics: DNA sequencing and Identifying protective genes in plants at Lund University
New ranking of top researchers in Agronomy and plant science
Major Novo Nordisk Foundation emerging investigator grant to Ramesh Vetukuri!

New PhD positions in forestry

1. Welcome to our new coordinator Anna Maňourová!

We would like to introduce our new PlantLink coordinator, Anna Maňourová. Anna comes from CZU in Prague and is also associated to Brno University. Her research focuses on Ethiopia and West Africa, where she has worked on the possible domestication of Garcinia kola, a medicinal tree, among other things. She also has a background working with social media at the Czech Radio. Much more information about Anna here. She is this month’s researcher in the spotlight!

2. Join us for the Fascination of Plants Day 18 May!

We will celebrate this year’s Fascination of Plants Day on the 18 of May with the title ”Plants to the rescue? Roles of plants to mitigate climate change”. This will be an open meeting in Lund from 15:00 in Blå Hallen in the Ecology building (Sölvegatan 37) where we hope to attract students, teachers and researchers as well as interested members of the public. We hope to cover many aspects of how plants and plant research can help with the challenge of climate change. The invited speakers are Marie Nyman, retiring Chief Secretary of the Swedish gene technology advisory board, Eva Johansson, director of SLU Grogrund, Martin Sykes, professor emeritus in plant ecology, and Eva Tornberg, professor emeritus and founder of Veg of Lund. The discussion is led by science journalist Peter Sylwan.

It is also a great chance to come and coffee mingle with our incoming director, Federico Gomez, and new coordinator Anna Maňourová!

3. Sign up for PlantLink day “New plant products” 5 October!

The program for the upcoming PlantLink day with the theme “New plant products” is taking shape. We now have three confirmed keynote speakers. Robert Brummer (Örebro University and the national research center PAN, Sweden), on the topic of Plant-based Proteins for Health and Wellbeing, Heiko Rischer (VTT, Finland), on the topic of Plant cell cultures as food, and their work with coffee cells, and Morten Ambye-Jenson (Aarhus University, Denmark) on protein extraction from grasses and herbaceous legumes. The PlantLink day 2022 is on the 5th of October at SLU Alnarp, and will start before lunch with a tour of the Plant Protein Factory, and continue with seminars during the afternoon. Sign up for the event already now here!

4. Seminar on Advancement of Biofortification and Tropical Crops, 5 May

We invite you to this afternoon seminar on Advancement of Biofortification and Tropical Crops. This seminar precedes the PhD defence of Priscilla Olayide (SLU) 6 May at 9:00 CET and is part of the VR Swedish Research Links “Plant Biotech in sub-Saharan Africa – Technology Transfer and New Policies”.
Place: Crafoord Hall, SLU Alnarp or as a Webinar online (link will be provided upon registration)

Program Thursday 5 May (CEST)
14:30 Coffee outside Crafoord Hall, SLU Alnarp
15:00 “Dissecting cassava root bulking: origin and early development”, Livia Stavolone/Andreas Gisel (CNR Bari, Italy/IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria)
15:30 “Exploring the current genetic diversity for prebreeding purposes, an case study in banana”, Sebastien Carpentier (Bioversity International, Leuven, Belgium)
16:00 “Sustainable diets and the role of legumes and biofortified crops”, Marta Vasconcelos (Centro de Biotecnologia e Química Fina, CBQF, Porto, Portugal)

Please sign up by 4th of May here!

5. SLU Grogrund webinar update on Resistance breeding for healthy crops, 23 May

This webinar (NB in Swedish only!) aims to inform stakeholders and those interested in the SLU Grogrund Resistance breeding for healthy crops project. Sign up here.

6. The biennial SPPS conference is on Svalbard!

The SPPS conference 2022, 30th of August – 2nd of September 2022 in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway. More information. PLEASE NOTE – Early-bird registration for members ends today!

7. 3rd PlantEd Conference – Germany, 5-7 Sept 2022

The 3rd PlantEd Conference will be held over three days, with open scientific sessions on genome editing technology in plants, followed by PlantEd Working Group sessions and a Management Committee meeting. The conference will be a hybrid event, with a limited number of participants (100 under current COVID-19 rules) physically present, combined with live streaming (up to 500 participants via the Talque platform).

The PlantEd conference, a network for plant genome editing research across Europe and beyond, is an excellent platform for disseminating information, discussion, and connections and updating the latest research and innovation. Register and read more here.

8. 27th NJF Congress – Onward in Agriculture

The NJF – Nordic Association of Agricultural Science was founded in 1918 as the first Nordic based association for cooperation between scientists involved with agriculture. They have recently celebrated their first 100 years and plan to continue their work and thus find “Onward in Agriculture” being a suitable theme for their centennial jubilee congress on Iceland, 27-29 September

9. ELLS annual student conference 23-24 September in Prague

MSc students! Save the dates 23-24 September 2022 to join the ELLS annual student conference. It is a great venue to meet up with fellow European students in the life sciences in the broad sense of the term. This year’s theme is “The Interconnectedness of Things: A Path Towards Sustainable Solutions”. For SLU students, it is possible to apply for travel grants for this event and summer schools. Pre-registration and abstract submission deadline is 15 May. More information on the conference here.

10. Fourth NordPlant annual meeting, 30 November 2022

This year, the NordPlant annual meeting will be held on 30 November in Lund, with the theme “Envirotyping for plant breeding and precision agriculture” in conjunction with the Göte Turesson jubilee that commemorates 100 years since the term Ecotype was coined. We already have some very prominent keynote speakers who have confirmed their attendance. Invited speakers with preliminary titles are Antoine Harfouche (UNITUS): Leveraging Explainable Artificial Intelligence to Advance Plant Phenomics Research and Decisions; Jose Luis Araus Ortega (University of Barcelona), TBA; Fred Stoddard (University of Helsinki): Fitting faba bean for high-latitude farming; Therese Bengtsson (SLU): Pre-breeding for adaptation of spring barley to Northern latitudes; Nasir Uddin (Husqvarna group): AI and data science in a forest, green space and garden outdoor equipment company. The program will soon be finalized, but you can already register here.

11. PhD NOVA course: “Phenotyping Technologies in Plant-Environment Interactions – Common Data Standards and Omics Technologies in Phenotyping”

The registration for the NOVA PhD course organised by NordPlant at SLU Alnarp/Lund: “Phenotyping Technologies in Plant-Environment Interactions – Common Data Standards and Omics Technologies in Phenotyping”, 28 November – 2 December 2022 is now open here. Please spread the word about this course!

12. Postdoctoral fellow in Bioinformatics: DNA sequencing and Identifying protective genes in plants at Lund University

This post doc position is open in Eran Elhaik’s group. Apply by 5 May here.

13. New ranking of top researchers in Agronomy and plant science

The site research.com has published a world ranking of top researchers in Agronomy and plant science. The magic cut-off to enter the list is h=30. There are some names that are very familiar to PlantLink supporters in the Swedish national top, something we are very proud of! But can you guess who? If not click here!

14. Major Novo Nordisk Foundation emerging investigator grant to Ramesh Vetukuri!

We congratulate Ramesh Vetukuri (SLU) who received an emerging investigatior Novo Nordisk Foundation grant within Plant Science, Agriculture and Food Biotechnology. The title of the grant is “Understanding the cross-kingdom movement of small RNAs in plant-pathogen interactions and its implications for control of potato late blight disease” 9.72 million DANISH(!) Kroner over 5 years. This is too our knowledge the first plant Novo Nordisk Foundation emerging investigator grant in the Swedish part of Öresund!

15. New PhD positions in forestry

There are 13 PhD positions open within the TREES FOR ME Competence Centre, including several at the Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre at SLU Alnarp. Read more about the positions here, and apply here.

PlantLink news May