Agriculture, Food & Wine HDR Symposium award winners announced

The School of Agriculture, Food and Wine held its annual Higher Degree by Research (HDR) Symposium on 17 and 18 September. Over 40 students presented long format talks (15 minutes), three-minute thesis style talks or posters.

The audience were treated to a wide range of interesting topics including (but not limited to):

• The effect of organic amendments on soil.
• Vegetable-based meat products.
• Identifying semi-dwarf genes in barley.
• Transformation of various plants.
• Using microorganisms from native plants for fermentation.
• Measuring various compounds in wine.
• Development of new herbicides.
• Duckweed for space and faba bean milk production.

Professor Jason Able, Head of School, commented, "The student research symposium demonstrates the breadth of activity within our school and provides insight into the agronomists, food technologists, plant breeders, and wine makers (as examples) of the future. Our HDR students are part of the ‘bedrock’ of our research success, and as such, we will continue to support and nurture this talent to enable us to keep delivering innovative solutions which contribute to solving real-world challenges within the agriculture, food and wine sectors."

In addition to HDR student presentations, Dr Richard Harvey – the COO of Plants 4 Space – provided sage advice to students about their future journey or careers after their PhD. The networking poster sessions were also well attended with much discussion.

Professor Jason Able, Head of School presented the awards to each winner (pictured below).