Raul Huertas

Research Leader, Co-Head of Plant Biochemistry and Food Quality Group
Environmental and Biochemical Sciences
T: +44 (0)138 256 8838

Discovery-oriented:

📚 Leveraging plant natural variation in response to environmental stresses to understand their physiological, molecular and metabolic responses, constraints, adaptive strategies, potential and limits

📚 Exploring how environmental stresses –such as temperature, drought, and nutrient conditions–affect crop performance (yield) and the nutritional quality of food (minerals, proteins, bioactive, etc.) in outdoor and controlled farming systems.

✔ Crop-agnostic for research but biased towards 🌿legumes/pulses🫛🫘

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Translational:

🎯 Improve morpho-physiological and agronomic traits for enhanced productivity, as well as nutraceutical traits for human, feed, and industrial applications — leveraging precision farming and biotechnology (gene editing 🧬).

Common bean genotypes
Lettuce cultivars
Photosynthetic traits in potato mutants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current Projects:

  • 2024-2027 “Light Pulsing in Vertical Farming For Sustainable Fresh Produce – LightPuls-VF”.  Co-Investigator,  £582k. BBSRC/Innovate UK/Industrial Partner – Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd.
  • 2024-2027 “Exploiting Controlled Environments for the Development of Optimised Cannabis Sativa Phenotypes for Pharmaceutical Applications – CE-CannPharm”. Co-Investigator, £664k. BBSRC/Innovate UK/Industrial Partner – GlassPharms Ltd.
  • 2024-2027 “Optimising Genetics by Management (GxM) Interactions to Enhance Productivity and Quality in Indoor Lettuce Cultivation – GxM-Lettuce”. Researcher. BBSRC/Innovate UK/Industrial Partners – Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd and Tozer Seeds Ltd.
  • 2024-2029 “National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre – NAPIC”. Researcher Co-Investigator.  BBSRC/Innovate UK/Industry/Stakeholders.
  • 2023-2024 “Machine learning for identifying leaf reflectance proxies for rapidly deriving crop photosynthetic parameters – MLSynth”. PI, £20k Hutton Seedcorn Proof of Concept.

Past research

  • 2021-2023 “Upscaling adoption and exploitation of a wide diversity of Iron and Zinc-rich beans by rural populations in Africa – ZIRON Pulse“. Researcher. BBSRC/Innovate UK

Journals

Prior to appointment