Completing a PhD: Dr Chris Chagumaira reflects
December 13, 2022
Dr Christopher Chagumaira successfully defended his PhD thesis in September 2022. He was part of the first cohort of PhDs with the UoN-Rothamsted Graduate Centre for International Agriculture. His thesis focused on understanding and communicating uncertainty in spatial predictions of soil micronutrients for various stakeholders (including policymakers, farmers, and managers). He is now a Research …
The legacy of soil surveys
December 5, 2022
December 5 is World Soil Day. According to the UN, the purpose is to ‘focus attention on the importance of healthy soil and to advocate for the sustainable management of soil resources’. In this post, Prof Murray Lark reflects on the history of soil surveys and how they can aid our understanding and practices of …
Can we improve heat tolerance in rice? An interview with Dr Jordan Robson
November 29, 2022
Jordan Robson works on heat tolerance in rice populations. She is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Palaeobenchmarking Resilient Agricultural Systems project. Prior to this she completed her PhD in Prof Zoe Wilson’s lab in Plant Sciences at UoN. Tell me about your work. What is your research about? My research is based on …
How do we feed the world in the face of global population growth, changing demographics and climate change?
November 21, 2022
This post is written by Prof Andy Salter While the implications of, and solutions to, climate change, were discussed at COP27, two major global demographic landmarks were reached. The global population reached 8 billion and the population of India now matches that of China. These figures highlight the multifactorial challenges we face in ensuring adequate …
Improving the drought tolerance of pearl millet
November 14, 2022
Today at COP27 the focus of discussions is on water. Ensuring agricultural crops are resilient to drought, especially in the face of climate change is a huge undertaking but extremely important. Our researchers are investigating ways to make pearl millet more drought tolerant and ensure nutrient uptake. Pearl millet is a key crop that contributes significantly …
How should uncertainty in spatial information be communicated?
November 12, 2022
This post is written by Dr Christopher Chagumaira with contributions from Prof Murray Lark. Many and varied people have to make decisions about environmental management, be they farmers, policy-makers or managers, and spatial information about environmental variables (e.g., soil properties) is essential for this task. Within the Future Food Beacon, the GeoNutrition project is concerned …
Soils and decarbonisation: What future for agriculture?
November 11, 2022
It is decarbonization day at COP27 today. One of the ways to reduce carbon is capturing it in the soil. Soils are hugely important for our futures here on this planet. But how do soils capture carbon? And how can we develop agricultural practices that better support carbon sequestration in soils? In this post, Malcolm …
Cocoa fermentations and chocolate flavours
November 8, 2022
During the first week of July, a team of researchers from the Future Food Beacon travelled down to London to join the Royal Society Summer Science festival. After a competitive selection process, endless organising, liaising with external suppliers, and sourcing cocoa saplings, we were finally ready to share our awesome research on cocoa fermentations with …
Underutilized crops and their future potentials
November 2, 2022
The importance of crop diversification, for biodiversity and to cope with extreme weathers brought on by climate change, has never been more important. At the University of Nottingham, we have set up a Crop Diversification Unit, led by Dr Sean Mayes, to examine traditionally underutilized crops and their potentials as alternative sources of food for …
Our technology platforms: Molecular Phenomics
October 24, 2022
The Molecular Phenomics Platform (MPP) was successfully commissioned in autumn 2020, and now resides within the analytical suite of the newly refurbished North Lab at Sutton Bonington. The LCMS system, consisting of a UHPLC front end and high-resolution Quadrupole-Time of Flight tandem mass spectrometer, can resolve thousands of chemical compounds in a single analytical run, across a …
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