Rice is the most important food crop in the world, feeding over half the world’s population. However, rice water use efficiency, defined by units of yield produced per unit of water used, is the lowest of all crops. The aim of this thesis was to study the effect of plant hormones and the root microbiome on drought tolerance in rice. The new plant h...
Projections on the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity foresee prolonged and/or increased stress intensities and enlargement of a significant number of pathogens habitats. This significantly raises the occurrence probability of (new) abiotic and biotic stress combinations. With stress tolerance research being mostly focused on res...
Stress conditions in agricultural ecosystems can occur in variable intensities. Different resistance mechanisms to abiotic stress and pathogens are deployed by plants. Thus, it is important to examine plant responses to stress combinations under different scenarios. Here, we evaluated the effect of different levels of salt stress ranging from mild ...
WRKY is a transcription factor family unique to plants with diverse functions in defense pathways, abiotic stress tolerance and developmental programs. Family members are characterized by the conserved WRKY domain and significant sequence variation in the remainder of the protein, which is translated into distinct functions even for closely related...
Abiotic and biotic stress factors are the major constrains for the realization of crop yield potential. As climate change progresses, the spread and intensity of abiotic as well as biotic stressors is expected to increase, with increased probability of crops being exposed to both types of stress. Shielding crops from combinatorial stress requires a...
Plant hormones are paramount to plant adaptation to changing environmental conditions and interactions with microorganisms. There is currently limited knowledge on their significance in the response to stress combination. Using near isogenic lines (NILs) that carry the Ol-1, ol-2 and Ol-4 gene for resistance to tomato powdery mildew caused by Oidiu...
Onlangs is bij de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen een nieuw kassencomplex met faciliteiten in gebruik genomen. Er worden voedselkeuzeproeven gedaan met slakken, rupsen en coloradokevers, er wordt gewerkt aan planten die tolerant zijn tegen abiotische stress, zoals hitte, droogte en overstroming, er worden invasieve plantensoorten bestudeerd, zoals de...
Het gaat goed met de konijnen in onze heide- en stuifzandgebieden; na de dramatische achteruitgang van enkele jaren geleden zijn de aantallen het afgelopen jaar weer duidelijk toegenomen. Dat is goed voor de natuur, maar het heeft ook consequenties voor het voorkomen van sommige plantensoorten. Door konijnenvraat krijgt bijvoorbeeld de jeneverbes a...
