My expertise lays on field and lab crop physiology, combining physiological techniques from the molecular, microscopic, plant, and crop level. I am interested on studying how plants react to abiotic stress, and which strategies they use to thrive in in adverse environmental situations. I am also interested on how symbiotic organisms such as bacteria and fungi associate with agronomical crops and how this association can improve the plant response under a stress situation.
Keywords: Crop Sciences, Plant Sciences, High-Throughput Phenotying, Abiotic Stress, Symbiosis, Photosynthesis, Nitrogen fixation, High temperature, Carbon dioxide, Water Use efficiency
Subject Area: Crop Physiology
I am interested on studying how plants react to abiotic stress, and which strategies they use to thrive in in adverse environmental situations. I focus my research on detecting genotypic variation to abiotic stress such as drought, high temperature and elevated [CO2]. I am also interested on how symbiotic organisms such as bacteria (rhizobium) associate with agronomical crops and how this association can improve the plant response under a stress situation.
As the techniques used to measure plant responses to environmental stress are tedious and difficult to apply in field conditions, I am also interested in the research of new techniques that allow us to measure plant traits in a cheaper and high pace way (high-throughput phenotyping), such as NIRS, thermal cameras, and hyper-spectral cameras and analyzers.
In the Crop Physiology Lab at Auburn University researcher study how row crops (Cotton, peanut, soybean, and corn) adapt to different abiotic stresses such as drought, temperature, elevated CO2 and Ozone, and nutrient deficiencies in order to improve crop tolerance to those stresses. The Lab focuses on understanding how crops can maintain important physiological functions such as photosynthesis, N2 fixation, and complex root structures to tolerate those stresses.
