Newcastle University School of Agriculture – Our activities and potential for collaborative projects Newcastle University – Hainan Province Linkage Visit Dr. Julia Cooper, Lecturer in Soil Science November 2010

About us Part of Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering (SAgE) Approximately 60 academic staff Also approximately 40 technical, administrative and farm staff Main building on Newcastle University campus and two farms outside the city

Nafferton Farm - 360 ha Estate - cereals, oilseed - dairy, beef, lamb

What do we do? School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development Undergraduate teaching Post- graduate teaching Research Linking with industry Linking with society

Undergraduate teaching Agriculture Animal Science Agribusiness Management Countryside Management / Rural Studies Environmental Science Food and Human Nutrition

MSc Programmes Agricultural and environmental Science Wildlife conservation and management Marketing Medicinal plants and functional foods Ecological farming and food production systems Animal behaviour and welfare

Six research groups in the School of Agriculture Soils, Crops and Environment Integrated Animal Science Food Quality and Health Food systems consumption and marketing Science and technology studies in food and environment Rural Development

Multi-disciplinary research groups and centres The Centre for Rural Economy Nafferton Ecological Farming Group Human Nutrition Research Centre Food security network At University level, the Newcastle Institute for Research in Sustainability (NIReS)

Research Highlights – Nafferton Ecological Farming Group

Results from long term organic versus conventional field trials factorial design 2 levels of crop rotation – organic and conventional 2 levels of fertility management - organic and conventional 2 levels of crop protection – organic and conventional

Crop Yields Wheat Source P-value Fertility management ns Crop protection 0.0051 Fertility management x Crop protection 0.014 76% 70% 95%

Pesticide residues Wheat 2004 CCC (μg/kg) Interaction p=0.0001 P= pesticide and CCC MF= Mineral NPK Fertiliser Crop protection Org (-P) Conv (+P) Org (-P) Conv (+P) Fertilisation Organic (-MF) Conventional (+MF)

Crop management effects on protein expression in potatoes

Reference gel Total >600 spots 284 spots 93 Highly significant (p<0.01) 191 Significant (p<0.05)

Crop management effects on protein expression in potatoes

Soil assessments in organic and conventional systems

Molecular techniques for soil biodiversity studies Less than 1% of all bacteria can be cultured. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and BIOLOG plates were used to analyse the nifH and total eubacterial community. DGGE is a method used to examine the diversity of the microbial population that has a certain gene. qPCR is used to quantify the amount of a certain gene in the population. BIOLOG Ecoplates show the metabolic fingerprint of the sample.

DGGE results – nifH gene (free-living N fixers) Potatoes/winter barley Potatoes/beans March June September March June September Fully organic Conventional protection Organic health Fully conventional Organic protection Conventional health F Org Con P F Org Con P Figs 3 and 4. DGGE gels showing the separation of nifH PCR products over a 35-55 % denaturing gradient.

Principal Component Analysis of DGGE Gels – nifH gene Fig. 5. Principal Component Analysis of June potato/winter barley soils Orange = fully organic Red = fully conventional Green = conventional fertility organic health Blue = organic fertility conventional health

qPCR results nifH gene- the effect of pre-crop & date Factor P-value Date 0.0012 Pre-crop <0.0001 Fertility management 0.0099

Nutrient Use Efficient Crop Production Trials New European Union Project Includes partners at CAAS in Beijing Focussed on NUE maize, wheat, oilseed rape and potatoes Nafferton wheat trials COMMUNITY RESEARCH

NUE-CROPS wheat variety trials 8 varieties of wheat – short straw and long straw 5 fertility treatments – 0 N, 85 kg fertilizer N/ha, 170 fertilizer kg N/ha, 85 kg compost N/ha, 170 kg compost N/ha Deep soil sampling – nitrates Leaf sampling – proteomics and transcriptomics Yield sampling – biomass partitioning, grain yield, protein

NUE-CROPS wheat variety trials 2010 results P value N <.0001 Variety NxVar Explain graph! To select which samples to do the transcriptomics / proteomics

Summary of AFRD Research Expertise Expertise is multidisciplinary Full food chain analysis from “field to fork” Including crop, soil, nutritional, marketing and consumer behaviour Linking molecular scale –omics methods with field scale measurements Focus on resource efficient and environmentally friendly food production systems

Acknowledgements Newcastle University – Hainan link Students and staff who have contributed – Prof. Carlo Leifert, Dr. Catherine Tetard, Leo Rempelos, Mftah Almadni, Caroline Orr, Dr. Stephen Cummings We gratefully acknowledge funding from the European Community under the Seventh Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities, for the Integrated Project NUE-CROPS. COMMUNITY RESEARCH

NUE-CROPS CAAS Partners A team from 2 CAAS/CAS Institutes and 2 Universities will be involved in NUE-CROPS via the CAAS: Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP-CAAS) led by Prof. B Zhao (BZ) which is based at the CAAS complex in Beijing will be the lead participant. Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Science (IGDB- CAS) in Beijing China Agricultural University (CAU, Beijing) Shandong Agricultural University (SAU, Shandong)