Published on The James Hutton Institute (https://www.hutton.ac.uk)

Home > print > node > 2221 > Tracy Valentine

Tracy Valentine

Staff picture: Tracy Valentine
Ecological Sciences
Ecological Sciences
Research Leader Plant:Soils interactions
tracy.valentine@hutton.ac.uk
+44 (0)344 928 5428 (*)

The James Hutton Institute
Invergowrie
Dundee DD2 5DA
Scotland UK

 

Tracy has over 20 years experience in applied and basic research at the plant root:soils interface. Utilising both image analysis and molecular based methods she has investigated processes and impacts of soil management on plant root growth and development, and root soil biological and physical interactions with the aim of understanding how to improve crop genotypes and management systems, via increasing knowledge of root:soil biological and physical processes at a range of scales.

Current research interests

  • • Understanding how changes in agriculture impact on the performance of crop plants, as well as the impact of the management on soils is key to developing more sustainable farming practices in terms of crop yield, long-term soils sustainability and farm income sustainability.
    • Research includes:
    o Mechanistic understanding of the individual root elongations
    o Phenotyping of root traits including root architecture
    o Mechanistic understanding of root interactions with soil structure
    o Understanding impact of crop management (e.g. soil tillage and crop rotations) on soil and root:soil interactions
    o High resolution and multispectral imaging and image analysis
    o Whole plant phenotyping and
    o Impact of soil restrictions on plant performance and ecosystem impacts
    o Impact of crop cultivar variation on root:soil interactions.
    o Utilisation of confocal microscopy and computer vision techniques to develop tools for measuring cell expansion, seed biology and root elongation.
     

Past research

  • Movement, replication and suppression of Tobacco mosaic virus and Tobacco rattle virus in tobacco and Arabidopsis. Utilisation of Tobacco rattle virus as a vector for inducing gene silencing of endogenous root development genes (Mylnefield Research Services).
  • Growth and development effects of cell wall carbohydrates (University College London)
Return to top

Bibliography

Source URL (retrieved on 2023-03-22 00:32): https://www.hutton.ac.uk/node/2221

Links:
[1] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9064-2896