Lia & Gwen had a great time at the annual Gatsby Network meeting at Oxford last week. Excellent to network & discuss projects with some of the brightest in the field, providing valuable new perspectives & ideas. It was also great to introduce Gwen to the Gatsby network & members!

Cristina’s latest paper from her PhD is now published: Can Increased Cover Crop Diversity Increase Root-Soil Binding and Reduce Soil Loss During Overland Flow? Well done @crismcbride.bsky.social 🌿 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Yesterday, Molly assisted with the harvest of the @Root2Res WP4 faba bean trials 🌱🫘 Thanks to the Hutton farm team for making it happen!

The team have been out at Balgonie all week doing the post-harvest sampling for the Agregen project funded by Diageo. This will help assess the impacts of regenerative practices on soil health. 🌱🌾

We’re in full reporting mode for EU projects at the moment, RADIANT, which comes to and end in August, and Root2Res and COUSIN which are reporting at 36 and 18 months, respectively.

Going along to the Dram Good Whisky Festival this weekend held at Arbikie Distillery this weekend, hope to see you there ! 🥃 www.highlandryewhisky.com/products/a-d...

The Scottish Government ENRA Research strategy forming the basis for research funding in Scotland 2027-2032 is out for public consultation, please follow the link to have your say www.gov.scot/publications...

Zoe passed her transfer report this week, well done!

Lawrie and Tim showcased Bere barley at the Rare Food Fair event in Porto which was organised by the H2020 RADIANT project. This citizen-orientated event was designed to promote traditional and cultural heritage using Underutilised Crops 🌾

📰 The first @COUSIN_project newsletter is out! Catch up on the latest updates, insights, and events 👉 cousinproject.eu?mailpoet_rou...

We are preparing for a trip to Porto to join the RADIANT final AGM, the Rare Food Fair and the #IPNC conference. Looking forward to a busy week with friends and colleagues in Porto. ipnc2025.org

Tim is giving a keynote talk this week at the British Mycological Society AGM held at Royal Hollloway, University of London. 🍄 www.britmycolsoc.org.uk

Insightful BBC World Service documentary featuring colleagues from ICARDA in Morocco, exploring the challenges of dryland agriculture and climate resilience. 🎧 Listen here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Cristina's revisions to her thesis have been accepted, so she has now officially been awarded her PhD. Congratulations @crismcbride.bsky.social 🎉🌾

Tim was included in Research.com's ranking of world leading scientists and named a 2024 Top Scholar by ScholarGPS.

🌱 Catch up on 4 recent IBH Root-related seminars featuring research from: 1. Dr. Riccardo Fusi – U. of Nottingham 2. Prof. Lee Hickey – U. of Queensland 3. Dr. Rahul Bhosale – U. of Nottingham @intbarleyhub.bsky.social @hutton.ac.uk

We held the @Root2Res midterm meeting online and heard some updates on the research, communication and dissemination of the project , if you missed it there is a recording available to members of the consortium.

See the latest ISRR Newsletter here to see what’s going on in the world of root research www.rootresearch.org/s/Welcome-to...

The future of EU science funding is uncertain. A united voice is needed to protect research & innovation in Europe. 📢 Sign the open letter & show your support: 👉 bit.ly/4kzL4pi 👉 lnkd.in/eSgHchPu

Chiara Campoli has been working with Paula Pongrac in Slovenia at the Synchrotron to look at the distribution Mn in the leaf blades of Bere barley crosses to try and understand the unique abilities of Bere to cope with Mn deficiency f2.ijs.si/en/news/2025...

Following on from the #Rhizosphere6 conference in Edinburgh the other week there are opportunities to publish your research in special issues in Frontiers in Soil Science, Plant and Soil and European Journal of Soil Science www.rhizo6.org/special-issues

A big thank you to Cassie, who finishes up with us this today after spending the last few months supporting the @Root2Res bean shovelomics work. It’s been great having her on the team.🫘🌱

🌾 Great news — Gwen Kirschner has taken a permanent position in the @PlantEcoHutton Team as Principal Investigator in Plant-Soil Interactions! It's great to know you're going to be around for longer, Gwen. @hutton.ac.uk @intbarleyhub.bsky.social @gwenkirschner.bsky.social

We are all sad to see Carmen leave Dundee, its her last week working with us. But we wish her all the best for her next adventure in Spain!

We just had the 44th EPSO Plant Science Seminar on “Plant-Plant Interactions”. Access to the recording is available to all EPSO personal and organisational members on the EPSO website. @epsoeurope.bsky.social

We had a great week last week at #Rhizosphere6 meeting up with old friends and making new ones. Looking forward to more fruitful interactions with this community in the future and when we go to Rhizosphere 7 in Vienna in 2029

Lawrie, Molly, Kirsty, James & Cristina showcased their research at #Rhizosphere6 in Edinburgh last week! Great to see the work of the group on display and connecting with the l rhizosphere community. @hutton.ac.uk

Davide Bulgarelli opened Day 2 of #Rhizosphere6 with a great plenary talk, highlighting how domestication and plant breeding shape the rhizosphere microbiota — and how these insights translate from lab to field. 🌱 @bulgarelli-d.bsky.social

Carmen gave an excellent talk at #Rhizosphere6 on evaluating combined root exudate and rhizosphere microbiota sampling approaches — offering valuable insights into rhizosphere traits. #Root2Res @carmen-escudero.bsky.social

Today marks the first day of the #Rhizosphere6 conference in Edinburgh. We look forward to a week of engaging presentations and discussions on the latest advances in root-soil-microbe interactions. 🌿

This week we visited our field site on Orkney to measure chlorophyll fluorescence (Fv/Fm) in the Bere × Irina barley crosses with BARIToNE PhD student Zoe Marshall. These measurements will give valuable insight into their ability to perform on marginal soils low in manganese🌾

Making great progress on dry weight samples from the #Root2Res bean harvest!

Tim attended a BNI (Biological Nitrification Inhibition) day at Aberdeen University this week. Great to see all the fantastic work going on a whole range of projects on the topic

Our abstracts for IPNC 20 in Porto have been accepted for presentation as a poster and a talk. Looking forward to catching up with all our plant nutrition friends in Porto!

We just had the 43rd EPSO Plant Science Seminar on “Breakthroughs in Horticultural Species”. Access to the recording is available to all EPSO personal and organisational members on the EPSO website @epsoeurope.bsky.social

The final programme for #Rhizosphere6 is now available—download it here: 👉 drive.google.com/file/d/1iv5T... Take a look and plan your conference. If you’ve not already registered there’s still time and day rates are now available : www.rhizo6.org

Those of us not doing Root2Res Faba shovelomics have been out collecting samples from Grieves House for the monitoring of the long-term tillage trial.

The Root2Res Faba bean shovelomics harvest is complete! 🫘 Great to see so many out lending a hand — and we even stayed dry. Now onto the small matter of processing all those samples!!

A number of PlantEcoPhys team have got talk and poster presentations at Rhizosphere 6, so we look forward to seeing you all there in June. #Rhizosphere6

Everyone is raring to go for the Root2Res Faba bean shovelomics next week, we’ll be processing 1790 plants, wish us luck 🫘🌱 @hutton.ac.uk @Root2Res

Cristina passed her viva with flying colours. Well done Dr McBride-Serrano! 🎉 @crismcbride.bsky.social

It was great to see Eva Lippold’s talk at the Ecological Science Seminar Series this week, always good to get root related seminars at Hutton. @hutton.ac.uk

Our paper- Size Matters: Influence of Available Soil Volume on the Root Architecture and Plant Response at Transcriptomic and Metabolomic Levels in Barley is published in the June edition of Plant Cell Environment. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Still time to register for Rhizosphere 6! 🌱 Join us: www.rhizo6.org/registration #Rhizo6

Tim attended the final ERC Phytotrace meeting. The project held by Evi Oburger in BOKU has pushed forward our understanding of the role of phytosiderophores in metal availability to plants.

Lawrie has been helping Chiara Campoli set up a hydroponics experiment to produce Bere barley plants to take to Slovenia for analysis of distribution of manganese in shoot tissue using XANES @hutton.ac.uk

Barley seeds sorted by variety for inversion and non-inversion tillage plots at Grieves House. These are sown in the same arrangement as their packaging, allowing us to see the differences between different varieties within and between these different plots, side by side. @hutton.ac.uk

Here’s our new Plant Ecophysiology Team photo!

Our paper: Back to the future: Using ancient Bere barley landraces for a sustainable future is published in the May edition of Plants, People, Planet. 🌾 @hutton.ac.uk nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Find out more about the Innovate project we are involved in that looks at the use of seaweed extracts as a nutrient management tool. @hutton.ac.uk www.hutton.ac.uk/new-project-...