Understanding crop physiology is of utmost importance for adapting agriculture to the challenges associated to climate change and environmental degradation. While molecular biology has made impressive strides in elucidating the regulation of processes in plants, the challenge remains to understand what this means for processes in real crops as this is the level at which farmers act to produce food, forage, fiber, and fuel. Building a deep knowledge on the functioning of crops and their interaction with the environment requires an effective conceptualization of such complex system at different levels through the integration of various disciplines and tools into a framework that is continuously evolving.
This course invites students to develop critical thinking around the discussion on how recent developments in physiology of primary processes, as well as methods such as crop modelling and phenotyping, can provide new and integrative insights on crop physiology. Therefore, the course is based on group and individual assignments accompanied with plenary discussions, for which students will use relevant scientific publications and lectures covering important aspects of crop physiology.