Congratulations to Danning for receiving the faculty prize for the best thesis in plant science.

Yan worked on the development of the BonnMu transposon resource in maize and functionally charactized one of the BonnMu root mutants.

The CFG and CS group enjoyed a wonderful hiking trip on the Apollinaris-Schleife, which included a wine tasting from the Maibachfarm at the Ahr Valley. Later, we had the opportunity to see and got to know the ostriches at the farm in Remagen.

Dr. Caroline Marcon has been awarded the Theodor Brinkmann Science Prize by the Faculty of Agriculture at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. During the Faculty Council meeting in April 2024, Dean Prof. Dr. Heiko Schoof recognized her exceptional habilitation thesis titled “Functional genomics of maize (Zea mays L.) seedling roots.”

Maize can grow successfully in very different local conditions. An international study headed by the University of Bonn has now demonstrated the important role of the plant root system. The researchers analyzed more than 9,000 varieties in the study and were able to show that their roots varied considerably – depending on how dry the location is where each variety was cultivated. They were also able to identify an important gene that plays a role in the plant’s ability to adapt. This gene could be the key to developing varieties of maize that cope better with climate change. The results were recently published in the prestigious journal Nature Genetics.

Alina worked on the molecular dissection of drought and salt response in barley.

Thanks to the good weather, we were able to plant our maize field at the University of Bonn's experimental station on May 2, 2024.

Danning worked in her project on genetic basis and environmental regulation of root-microbiome associations in maize.