Rachel Dye

Current Project Title: Climate Robust Wheat: understanding how heat and water stress affect meiosis and grain production.

Background:

I graduated from Aberystwyth University with a First class degree in Plant Biology with a dissertation project specialising in flooding stress in perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne). I continued working with grasses in my masters (MPhil) project, investigating the micronutrient content of perennial, Italian and hybrid ryegrasses to alleviate ryegrass staggers in livestock by focusing on relationships between P, K, Mg and Ca. During both my undergraduate and masters projects I worked with Germinal as a company partner and was involved in part-time work in the grass breeding team, working also with clover, plantain and show plants. During the summer of 2019 and 2020 I was awarded a Stapledon Trust Award and completed mini-projects with IBERS grass breeders. 

 

I am currently supervised by John Doonan working in the National Plant Phenomics Centre to conduct stress experiments on wheat and oats. The first stage of this project has been to establish how metabolite analysis can aid in discovering stress tolerant genotypes. 

 

This PhD is funded by the Danish research council and Aberystwyth University.

Will apply for TPAU in year 2 of project.