Crop plants, increasingly contributing to both human materials and food needs, adapt to their ever-changing environment and fend off pathogens through their lifecycle to survive, grow and reproduce. Plant biologists across Scotland study the processes by which plants respond to such external factors as drought, water-logging, cold or pathogens in a sustained effort to improve and maximise crops, advancing their yields and quality.

The meeting, hosted by the Division of Plant Sciences at the University
of Dundee, brings together basic and applied plant/crop science and
provides an opportunity for early career scientists to present their newest research findings.

“With food security, energy and material production and climate change dominating social agendas across Europe and beyond, solutions addressing these key issues have become of great importance,” says           (right) Dr Edgar Huitema, Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellow in the Division of Plant Sciences at the University of Dundee.

“At our meeting this week diverse topics relevant to crop improvement, bio-energy and biodiversity will be presented, reflecting the vibrant and rapidly growing plant biology research community here in Scotland. I am very excited to meet... exchange knowledge and look for new opportunities to interact and collaborate.”

Doubtless Dundee's researchers will also keep an interested eye across the pond to  Anaheim, California where Experimental Biology 2010 is underway from April 24-28. That website is ultra- informative about absolutely everything, except for vital skeleton information that lets you quickly locate your interest! But the papers and poster abstracts will doubtless emerge on the web at some point, tracking complementary new bio news and developments worth watching.