Department of Food Science

My research focus is concerning the photosynthesis of plants subjected to changes in abotic factors including CO₂ and other environmental factors, using physiological responses on intact plants for building up a knowledge base in the control of climate in commercial greenhouses in order to conserve energy. The current research includes effects of regular or irregular light patterns but also the effects of spectral composition of plant reactions both in terms of photosynthesis and secondary metabolites linked to the circadian rhythms and carbohydrate metabolism. The toolbox to obtain the results is focused around all types of measurement of photosynthesis and related processes both using invasive and non-invasive measurements. We have developed platforms for phenotyping in greenhouses and controlled environment initially for heat stress that has been applied on tomatoes and wheat and future work will focus on repeated stresses including cold stress on protein crops. The systems for phenotyping are small scale and focussed

The funding of projects has ranged from the Danish Research Council to funding from EU, Danida and Ministry of Food Fisheries and Agriculture, often with a substantial industrial cofounding.

I am manager for an ERDF Interreg Project “SmartGreen” with 8 international partners around the North Sea with a special focus on developing methods for energy saving in greenhouses and future production systems. The partners are universities, applied research institutes, research stations and advisory services.

I am partner of The European Plant Phenotyping Network2020 funded by EU coordinates the efforts of Germany, France, UK, Denmark, The Netherlands, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The scientific communities involve biologists, geneticists, statisticians, modellers and specialists of image analysis for the use and development of phenotyping platforms.

I am part of the funding group of The International Plant Phenotyping Network (IPPN) aiming to develop an international for collaboration and coordination of research in phenotyping

I was member of core group of the COST action 1306 concerning phenotyping (PhenomenAll).

Successful outcomes have led to the climate control program IntelliGrow and also dynamic use of supplemental light Dynalight. Using the methods we have been and more recently phenotyping of wheat Danish and EU projects concerning energy saving within the greenhouse production.

We are formally collaborating within the The European Plant Phenotyping Network funded by EU coordinates the efforts of Germany, France, UK, Denmark, The Netherlands, Hungary and the Czech Republic, where we have been performing joint experiments concerning maize and rape seeds.

We have a formal collaboration on wheat phenotyping with the university of Aberysthwyth and The Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK).

Within climate management we have formal collaboration within the SmartGreen Interreg Project and in national projects with SDU and KU.