Welcome
Welcome to my web pages. In them, you can find out about me, my lab, and the
research that we perform in Lancaster.
Mike Roberts
Plant Stress Biology
The Group
I am
involved in the supervision of several research projects
which include technical staff and postgraduate students.
Follow the 'People' menu for more information.
Our Research
Our
research is centred around understanding plant responses to stress.
I have a strong interest in understanding the fundamental processes
underlying plant resistance against environmental stress, but also
in applying this knowledge to crop protection solutions.
Mike Roberts' Plant Stress Biology Group
Welcome to my
personal web pages, which provide detail on the research activities
going on in my lab. These pages reflect the current focus of my
researtch, which is long-term priming of plant defence. Some of my much
older web pages, covering my now moth-balled work on 14-3-3 proteins are
still here in their original state.
The Roberts group contributes to the
Plant and Crop Science research area within our home Department,
the Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC).
News
June 2023: We have won funding from the Forestry Commission for a project to look at a new seed priming technique that we hope may improve germination and/or abiotic stress tolerance in UK native tree species.
Aug 2022: A collaborative project between Manolis Papaioannou in Engineering, and myself and Ian Dodd in LEC, has won funding from EPSRC. We will be examining root exudates in pea hydroponic culture of peas.
April 2022: Mike was co-organiser of the successful
IOBC-WPRS PR-IR2022 conference
Priming the Future of Healthy Plants in Sheffield, UK from 4th–7th
April 2022.
At the meeting, he presented our
newly published paper on methylation responses to BABA priming in
tomato.
July 2022: Congratulations to Jon Rodriguez for successfully defending his PhD thesis on biostimulants.
Feb 2023 & Nov 2022: Andrew Prestt and Damian Lascelles, two previous Masters students on the Waitrose Food Challenges for the Future distance learning programme have their work published.