The three researchers that received funding from Formas: Stefan Jansson (left; photo: Fredrik Larsson), Peter Kindgren (middle; photo: Fredrik Larsson) and Hannle Tuominen (right; photo: Alekzandra Granath)
The Swedish governmental research council for sustainable development, Formas, granted last week the research projects of Stefan Jansson, Peter Kindgren and Hannele Tuominen. The researchers plan to study how aspen trees regulate autumn senescence, develop a GMO-free approach to improve crops and identify aspen trees that use nitrogen most efficiently for short-rotation cultivation.
A changing climate might change the length of the growing season and trees need to adjust the time when they shed their leaves to the changing conditions. Stefan Jansson, Professor at the Department of Plant Physiology at Umeå University, plans to investigate how autumn senescence is regulated in different, naturally occurring aspen trees and build on the knowledge that he and his group has already gained throughout the last years.
Their idea is to identify genes that play a role in the regulation of autumn senescence and use them to select trees with promising features but also to introduce targeted gene modifications in hybrid aspen. This collection of aspen trees will be tested under different conditions in the greenhouse and in the field to see how suited they are for breeding programmes. Stefan Jansson and his group plan to combine this project with a citizen science project on autumn senescence.
Peter Kindgren, researcher at the Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), plants to address a completely other problem. He aims on developing an approach to improve crops without genetical modification as the current regulations in the European Union do not allow to use such plants in agriculture. His idea is to use a plant internal mechanism to activate genes and like this make them for example more tolerant to cold.
The herbaceous plant Arabidopsis thaliana will be used as model to develop the GMO-free approach. Peter Kindgren and his group will focus on genes that allow plants to acclimatize to cold and compare their novel approach with traditional genetical modification techniques. When they have established the approach for Arabidopsis thaliana, the researchers want to transfer their approach to the commercially important crops barley and wheat.
Hannele Tuominen, professor at the Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology at SLU, wants to understand in her granted project how trees use nitrogen for wood formation. Nitrogen is the main growth limiting factor in boreal forests but adding nitrogen fertilizer to increase the productivity of the forest can affect the surrounding environment negatively. Hannele Tuominen and her group will study how different nitrogen forms and concentrations will affect the chemistry, structure and mechanical properties of the wood.
The researchers will focus on a natural collection of different Swedish Aspen trees. By comparing those trees and their reaction on different nitrogen treatments, they hope to understand better how nitrogen is used for wood formation. Their goal is to identify those trees that use nitrogen most efficiently to reduce the negative effect of nitrogen fertilisation without impairing valuable wood properties. According to the researchers, this selection of trees might help to make short-rotation cultivation of hybrid aspen more attractive in Sweden.
The projects:
- How do trees survive winter?
Stefan Jansson
Umeå Plant Science Centre
Department of Plant Physiology
Umeå University
Email:
https://www.upsc.se/stefan_jansson
- A GMO-free approach in plants to boost food production
Peter Kindgren
Umeå Plant Science Centre
Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Email:
https://www.upsc.se/peter_kindgren
- Towards improved nitrogen use efficiency in aspen trees
Hannele Tuominen
Umeå Plant Science Centre
Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Email:
https://www.upsc.se/hannele_tuominen