Robusta

The overall purpose of the project is to ensure Danish farmers have access to varieties of grains, grass and potatoes, with better utilization of the nitrogen and water resources essential for plant growth. Robusta activities at University of Copenhagen in 2017 follow the plan. The work has so far focused on improving root growth screening in the RadiMax plant, as well as experiments on nitrogen efficiency in barley varieties carried out in 5 locations. In connection with RadiMax, the Robusta project has contributed to a number of fields to improve and expand the measurements that can be made on the varieties in the plant.
Robusta has contributed to upgrading the lighting system on the root cameras - an important contribution to the fact that we are now almost able to quantify root growth by means of image analysis. We have also started measuring growth and drying stress using drone photography as a contribution to studying the water and nitrogen utilization of the varieties. On 19 June 2017, the first flight with a thermographic camera was completed over the RadiMax barley trials.
We conduct extended experiments with direct measurement of N and water absorption using trace elements. The supply of 15N nitrogen isotope and isotope labeled water (2H2O) as a trace to a variety of barley varieties has been completed. Finally, Robusta is working to improve the statistical methods for analyzing data from the RadiMax facility.
In September 2017, experiments on five locations are being carried out to quantify the nitrogen efficiency of winter wheat, similar to the experiments carried out in spring barley.

 

Please visit the Robusta webpage here