Newcastle University – Hainan Province Linkage Visit Dr. Julia Cooper, Lecturer in Soil Science

1. 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

2. 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

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

4. What do we do?

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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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)

9. Research Highlights – Nafferton Ecological Farming Group

10. 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

11. Crop Yields Wheat 76% 70% 95%

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

13. Crop management effects on protein expression in potatoes

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

15. Crop management effects on protein expression in potatoes

16. Soil assessments in organic and conventional systems

17. 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.

18. 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 Figs 3 and 4. DGGE gels showing the separation of nifH PCR products over a 35-55 % denaturing gradient.

19. 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

20. qPCR results nifH gene- the effect of pre-crop & date P=0.0004 P=0.0124 P=0.0063

21. COMMUNITY RESEARCH 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

22. 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

23. NUE-CROPS wheat variety trials 2010 results

24. 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

25. COMMUNITY RESEARCH 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.

26. 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)