Tracy Valentine

Research Leader Plant:Soils interactions
Ecological Sciences
T: +44 (0)344 928 5428 (*)

Tracy has over 20 years experience in applied and basic research at the plant root:soils interface.

Plant roots are highly dynamic, and the shape or root system architecture is both genetically determined and highly influenced by the growing environment.  Soil of agricultural systems is impacted by management, including tillage (ploughing or direct drilling of seeds), pesticide and herbicide usage (an the weight and timing of the machinery used) and the sequences of crops gown on the land.  Thus, the interaction of the management, crop genetics, soil management and local environment interact affecting the soil physical and biological status, the success of the crop, and the local environment (through for example biodiversity and fertiliser run off).

Tracy’s expertise is in utilising image analysis, molecular and soil physical analysis methods to investigate the processes and impacts of nutrient and soil physical and biological management on plant root growth and development, and root:soil biological and physical interactions and wider ecological impacts.  Her research aims to facilitate improved crop breeding and improvements in the management of cropping systems, via increasing knowledge of root:soil biological and physical processes at a range of scales.

The current direction of her research includes specific effect of climate change on cropping rotations, and the adaption of crop varieties to no-till systems (reduced fuel usage), and the implementation and diversity of cover crops in northern climates for increase biodiversity and resilience, together with multiscale mechanistic understanding of the direct physical interactions of plant roots and soil.

Research

    • Tracy currently manages – Grieves House Tillage Trial – This long-term trial was instigated in the Autumn of 2017, it is a full replicated trial, with a spring rotation (with fallow soil over winter) and a winter rotation (where soil is covered as much as possible).  Each rotation includes four years of cropping.  The winter rotation currently includes two winter period of cover crops.  Each rotation has plots managed under traditional inversion plough or no-tillage.  More details can be found at Grieves House Tillage Trial (hutton.ac.uk) and GrievesHouse (hutton.ac.uk)
    • Optimisation of cover crops for Scottish climatic conditions – This project aims to investigate and overcome some of the climate change and abiotic stress relating issues in establishing of winter cover cropping in northern climates.  Examples include shorter days, potentially establishing in drier period of the year, cooler temperatures.  Methods include root (and plant) phenotyping, investigations of impacts on the soil environment, and interactions between soil management and cover crop seeds and roots.
    • Healthy Soil for a green recovery – 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.
    • Development of imaging and image-analysis based methods for root and soil phenotyping.  These projects include image analysis of soil structure utilising flat bed scanners, and multispectral scanners, development of rhizotron and model soil systems for analysis of plant and soil physical interactions including root meristem growth (Transparent soil, PlantVis) and root hair phenotyping at multiple scales.

    Over the last 10 years Tracy has supervised eight Ph.D. students and have examined Ph.D. students’ theses from multiple countries.  The groups funding has been obtained from multiple sources:

    •             Nov 2023 – Oct 2025 HORIZON Postdoctoral Fellowship 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01) Fellowship, UKRI Postdoc Guarantee -Uncovering the mechanisms of the root gravitropic set-point angle and its application in agriculture. €220K

    •             Oct 2021 – Sep 2025 HydroNations PhD studentship Scholarship.  Optimising water use and soil carbon sequestration – can agricultural co-cropping systems provide multiple benefits to address climate change?  Total Value £172K

    •             Oct 2016 –Mar 2020 BBSRC PhD studentship funding via STARS PhD programme.  Modelling Variety Dependant Least Limiting Water Range: Assessing the Limits to Root Elongation in Field Soil

    •             Apr 2016 – Mar 2021       AHDB Management of Rotations –Total value £1760K, Value to JHI £411K. (Proj Number 91140001)

    •             Apr 2014 – Mar 2018       EU NASSTEC– The NAtive Seed Science, TEchnology and Conservation Initial Training Network. Lead – University of Pavia, MUSE, Trento, Italy; JHI Total Value £2699K Value to JHI £230k PITN-GA-2013-607785

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)

Publications

The following Publications have not yet been migrated to the James Hutton Institute's Pure service and relate to the research outputs from the two legacy organisations: The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute and The Scottish Crop Research Institute.

Journals

Books / chapters

  • White, P.J.; Bengough, A.G.; Bingham, I.J.; George, T.S.; Karley, A.J.; Valentine, T.A. (2009) Induced mutations affecting root architecture and mineral acquisition in barley., In: Shu, Q.Y. (ed.). Induced Plant Mutations in the Genomics Era. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Rome, Italy, pp381-384

Technical / contract reports

  • Valentine, T.A.; Bengough, A.G.; Hallett, P.D.; McKenzie, B.M. (2010) Root traits for a changing physical environment., Annual Report of the Scottish Crop Research Institute for 2009, pp13-14.
  • Iannetta, P.P.M.; Begg, G.S.; Wishart, J.; Young, M.W.; Karley, A.J.; Valentine, T.A.; Hawes, C.; Squire, G.R. (2006) Common wild plants as biodiversity indicators., Annual Report of the Scottish Crop Research Institute for 2006, pp42-43.
  • Bengough, A.G.; Hallett, P.D.; McKenzie, B.M.; Valentine, T.A.; Wuyts, N. (2006) Dynamics of root-soil systems., Annual Report of the Scottish Crop Research Institute for 2006, pp40-41.
  • Bengough, A.G.; Barlow, P.W.; Cooke, D.E.L.; Griffiths, B.S.; Humphris, S.N.; Iijima, M.; Killham, K.; Rodger, S.; Stubbs, V.; Valentine, T.A.; Young, I.M. (2004) Root border cells in plant-soil interactions., Annual Report of the Scottish Crop Research Institute for 2003/2004, 160-161.
  • Valentine, T.A.; Dorward, M.; Oparka, K.J. (1999) The silence of the RAMs – viral suppression in root apical meristems., Annual Report of the Scottish Crop Research Institute for 1999/2000, pp132-135.

Conference papers

  • Karley, A.J.; Hawes, C.; Valentine, T.A.; Johnson, S.N.; Toorop, P.E.; Squire, G.R.; Young, M.W.; Iannetta, P.P.M. (2011) Can arable weeds contribute to ecosystem service provision? Functional diversity in shepherd’s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris L. Medik.)., Aspects of Applied Biology, Agricultural Ecology Research: Its role in delivering sustainable farm systems, Dundee, 15-16 June 2011, 109, pp31-38.
  • Karley, A.J.; Iannetta, P.P.M.; Valentine, T.A.; Bingham, I.J.; Hoad, S.; Young, M.W.; Squire, G.R. (2010) Impact of plant traits on nitrogen-efficiency and compartmentation in arable systems., Association of Applied Biologists – Water and Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Plants and Crops, Olde Barn Hotel, Marston, Lincs, UK 15-16 December 2010. Aspects of Applied Biology, 105, 89-96.
  • Valentine, T.A.; Binnie, K.; Barnett, C.M.; McKenzie, B.M.; Bengough, A.G. (2009) Root responses to soil physical constraints: Quantitative gene expression analysis., 7th International Symposium of the Society for Root Research: Root Research and Applications, Vienna, Austria, 2-4 September 2009.
  • McKenzie, B.M.; Valentine, T.A.; Bengough, A.G.; Krol, M. (2009) Root plasticity to water and its relevance for drought tolerance., 7th International Symposium of the Society for Root Research: Root Research and Applications, Vienna, Austria, 2-4 September 2009.
  • Karley, A.J.; Binnie, K.; Iannetta, P.P.M.; Valentine, T.A.; Wright, G.M.; Young, M.W. (2008) Crop traits for crop-weed coexistence in reduced input arable systems., British Ecological Society Annual Meeting 2008, Imperial College, London, 3-5 September 2008.
  • McKenzie, B.M.; Krol, M.; Binnie, K.; Bengough, A.G.; Hallett, P.D.; Valentine, T.A.; Lilly, A. (2008) Putting together measures of soil physical quality., Eurosoil 2008, Vienna, Austria, 25-29 August 2008.
  • Wishart, J.; Scriven, C.; Begg, G.S.; Neilson, R.; Valentine, T.A.; Squire, G.R.; Dale, M.F.B.; Iannetta, P.P.M. (2007) Nematode mediated Tobacco Rattle Virus (TRV) infection in time-to-flowering (TTF) variants of Capsella., Scottish Root Group, University of Aberdeen, 14 September 2007.
  • Valentine, T.A.; Karley, A.J.; Hallett, P.D.; McKenzie, B.M.; Bengough, A.G. (2007) Genetic variation and interactions of root traits involved in plant:soil physical interactions., Rhizosphere 2, Montpellier, France, 26-31 August 2007.
  • Wuyts, N.; Roberts, T.J.; Bengough, A.G.; Bransby, M.F.; McKenna, S.J.; Valentine, T.A. (2007) New tools for motion analysis of time-lapse confocal laser scanning microscopy images to explore the dynamics of Arabidopsis root growth., Rhizosphere 2, Montpellier, France, 26-31 August 2007.
  • Bengough, A.G.; Roberts, T.J.; Wuyts, N.; Hans, J.; McKenna, S.J.; Valentine, T.A.; Bransby, M.F.; Dupuy, L.; Haseloff, J. (2007) Computer visualisation and modelling of plant morphogenesis: Motion analysis of time-lapse confocal microscopy images., BBSRC Joint Bioinformatics and e-Science, Proteomics and Cell Function Grantholders Workshop, Cheshire, 8-10 January 2007.
  • Roberts, T.J.; McKenna, S.J.; Wuyts, N.; Valentine, T.A.; Bengough, A.G. (2007) Performance of low-level motion estimation methods for confocal microscopy of plant cells in vivo., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Workshop on Applications of Computer Vision, Austin, Texas, 21-22 February 2007.
  • Hallett, P.D.; Newton, A.C.; Bengough, A.G.; Binnie, K.; Gordon, D.C.; Guy, D.C.; McKenzie, B.M.; Valentine, T.A. (2006) Do mixed cultivars outperform monocultures under a range of soil tillage practices?., ISTRO-2006, International Soil Tillage Research Organization Conference, Kiel, Germany, 23 August – 3 September 2006.
  • Walker, D.M.; Binnie, K.; Bengough, A.G.; Hallett, P.D.; Valentine, T.A.; McKenzie, B.M. (2006) A stochastic process model helps link root growth and least limiting water range., ISTRO-2006, International Soil Tillage Research Organization Conference, Kiel, Germany, 23 August – 3 September 2006.
  • Roberts, T.J.; McKenna, S.J.; Hans, J.; Valentine, T.A.; Bengough, A.G. (2006) Part-based multiframe registration for estimation of the growth of cellular networks in plant roots., 18th International Conference on Pattern Recognition, Hong Kong, 20-24 August 2006.
  • Valentine, T.A.; Binnie, K.; Hans, J.; McKenzie, B.M.; Bengough, A.G. (2006) Root responses to soil physical conditions., UMPIRE Meeting, Prague, April 2006.
  • Karley, A.J.; Valentine, T.A.; Greig, J.; Iannetta, P.P.M.; Squire, G.R. (2006) How does root morphology and response to nutrients relate to life history traits in ecotypes of Capsella bursa-pastoris?, 14th New Phytologist Symposium, The Royal Society, London, 23-24 January 2006.
  • Valentine, T.A.; Binnie, K.; Bengough, A.G. (2005) Role of border cells in root growth and rhizosphere interactions., Society for Experimental Biology – Plant Frontier Meeting, Sheffield, 21-23 March 2005.
  • Hans, J.; Bengough, A.G.; Bransby, F.; McKenna, S.; Roberts, T.J.; Valentine, T.A. (2005) Computer visualisation of root morphogenesis: Optical flow analysis of time-lapse confocal microscopy images., Scottish Root Group Meeting, SCRI, Dundee, November 2005.
  • Valentine, T.A.; Bengough, A.G.; Bransby, F.; Dupuy, L.; Hans, J.; Haseloff, J.; McKenna, S.; Roberts, T.J. (2005) Computer visualisation and modelling of plant morphogenesis: Optical flow analysis of time-lapse confocal microscopy images., BBSRC/SCRI Bioinformatics and Escience Workshop, Manchester, 18-19 October 2005.
  • Roberts, T.J.; Bengough, A.G.; Bransby, F.; Dupuy, L.; Hans, J.; Haseloff, J.; McKenna, S.; Valentine, T.A. (2005) Computer visualisation and modelling of plant morphogenesis: in-vivo segmentation and tracking of cells using confocal microscopy., BBSRC/SCRI Bioinformatics and Escience Workshop, Manchester, 18-19 October 2005.
  • Valentine, T.A.; Binnie, K.; Stubbs, V.; Bengough, A.G. (2004) Genetic analysis of the role of root border cells and mucilage in plant soil interactions., Rhizosphere – Perspectives and Challenges, Munich, Germany, 12-17 September 2004.
  • Valentine, T.A.; Binnie, K.; Stubbs, V.; Bengough, A.G. (2004) Function of root border cells in root-soil interactions explored by genetic analysis., Proceedings of the 14th Congress of the Federation of European Societies of Plant Biology, Krakow, Poland, 23-27 August 2004.
  • Bengough, A.G.; Bransby, M.F.; Hans, J.; McKenna, S.J.; Valentine, T.A.; Roberts, T.J. (2004) Phenotypic plasticity and the changing environment., Society of Experimental Biology Meeting, Sheffield University, March 2005.
  • Bengough, A.G.; McKenna, S.; Haseloff, J.; Valentine, T.A.; Bransby, F. (2004) Computer visualisation and modelling of plant morphogenesis: a dynamic toolkit for cell expansion and fluorescent reporters in roots., BBSRC eScience Meeting. Edinburgh, November 2004.

Conference posters / abstracts

  • Valentine, T.A.; Karley, A.J.; Squire, G.R.; Hawes, C.; Hallett, P.D.; Bengough, A.G. (2011) Soil physical indicators: matching root traits to soil physical constraints., Rhizosphere 3 International Conference, Perth, Australia, 25-30 September 2011. (Poster)
  • Valentine, T.A.; Binnie, K.; Squire, G.R.; Hawes, C.; Hallett, P.D.; Bengough, A.G. (2010) Quantitative analysis of root response to multiple physical constraints: effects of soil pore structure., XVII Congress of the Federation of European Societies of Plant Biology (FESPB), Valencia, Spain, 4-9 July 2010. (Poster)
  • Bengough, A.G.; Valentine, T.A.; Bingham, I.J.; McKenzie, B.M. (2009) Scaling root growth responses from seedlings to field., Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology, 153A(2) , S222-S222. Abstracts of the Annual Main Meeting of the Society of Experimental Biology, 28 June – 1 July, Glasgow, UK.
  • Bengough, A.G.; Valentine, T.A.; McKenzie, B.M.; Hallett, P.D.; Dietrich, R.; White, P.J.; Jones, H.G. (2009) Physical limitations to root growth: screening, scaling and reality., 7th International Symposium of the Society for Root Research: Root Research and Applications, Vienna, Austria, 2-4 September 2009. (Abstract).
  • Valentine, T.A.; Wuyts, N.; Roberts, T.J.; Du, C.J.; McKenna, S.J.; Bransby, M.F.; Bengough, A.G. (2009) Plant Vis: A new software tool for analysis of root growth dynamics., 7th International Symposium of the Society for Root Research: Root Research and Applications, Vienna, Austria, 2-4 September 2009 (Abstract).
  • Valentine, T.A.; Wuyts, N.; Roberts, T.J.; Du, C.J.; Bransby, M.F.; McKenna, S.J.; Bengough, A.G. (2008) PlantVis: Quantitative motion analysis of time-lapse confocal laser scanning microscopy images: application to plant root growth., SEB Plant Symposium/GARNet 2008, University of Nottingham, 8-10 September 2008 (Poster).
  • Valentine, T.A.; Wuyts, N.; Roberts, T.J.; Du, C.J.; Bransby, M.F.; McKenna, S.J.; Bengough, A.G. (2008) PlantVis: Exploring the dynamics of Arabidopsis root growth using motion analysis of time-lapse confocal laser scanning microscopy images., SEB Plant Symposium/GARNet 2008, University of Nottingham, 8-10 September 2008.
  • White, P.J.; Bengough, A.G.; Bingham, I.J.; George, T.S.; Karley, A.J.; Valentine, T.A. (2008) Induced mutations affecting root architecture and mineral acquisition in barley., Joint FAO/IAEA International Symposium on Induced Mutations in Plants, Vienna, Austria, 12-15 August 2008, 143.
  • Valentine, T.A.; Karley, A.J.; Binnie, K.; Post, J.; Young, M.W.; Wright, G.M.; Marshall, B.; Hallett, P.D.; McKenzie, B.M.; Bengough, A.G. (2006) Plant growth responses to soil physical constraints., ESF – Wellcome Trust Conference, Cambridge, 8-11 November 2006. (Poster)
  • Valentine, T.A.; Binnie, K.; Hans, J.; McKenzie, B.M.; Bengough, A.G. (2005) Root growth responses to soil physical properties., 14th New Phytologist Symposium,The Royal Society, London, 23-24 January 2006. (Poster)
  • Karley, A.J.; Valentine, T.A.; Haggarty, M.; Iannetta, P.P.M.; Squire, G.R. (2005) Does root morphology and nutrient acquisition explain life history traits in ecotypes of Capsella bursa-pastoris?, Scottish Plant Molecular Biology Meeting, February 2005 (Poster).
  • Lacomme, C.; Faivre-Rampant, O.; Gilroy, E.M.; Valentine, T.A.; Shaw, J.; Hrubikova, K.; Blok, V.C.; Hein, I.; Haupt, S.; Loake, G.; Birch, P.R.J.; Taylor, M.A.; Oparka, K.J. (2004) Virus-induced gene silencing vector development for functional studies in Solanaceae., 1st Solanaceae Genome Workshop. Wageningen, The Netherlands, 19-21 September 2004 (Abstract).
  • Valentine, T.A.; Shaw, J.; Blok, V.C.; Phillips, M.S.; Oparka, K.J.; Lacomme, C. (2004) Virus induced silencing of root function genes using a modified tobacco rattle virus., Plasmodesmata 5th International Conference, Pacific Grove, California, USA, 17-21 August 2004 (Abstract).

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