Meet Nienke Van der Wal, PhD Candidate

I want to find out how plants
balance growth and disease resistance.

In this series, we introduce you to the people behind CropXR. Who are they, what do they do, and why are they passionate about their work for CropXR?

Trade-off between plant growth and disease immunity

My role is to investigate the trade-off between plant growth and immunity. My PhD project is part of the CropXR C4 Work Package. In this program, we aim to unravel how plants balance resilience to environmental stresses and growth. The work package consists of five PhD projects, of which one is mine. Each of us focuses on a different aspect of the resilience-growth trade-off.

Understanding how plants balance growth, immunity, and resilience

In my PhD research, I study how plants balance growth and immunity. Plants need a strong defence system to protect themselves against disease, but activating that defence can come at the cost of growth.

Screening large collections of Arabidopsis plants

To understand this balance, we screen large collections of Arabidopsis plants at the NPEC Research Facility of Wageningen University. We measured how their shoots grew after triggering immune responses. By linking these visible plant traits to genetic information, we aim to identify the molecular players involved in the trade-off between growth and immunity.

We also study how proteins interact during and after a defence response. This helps us understand how plants regulate growth while defending themselves.

We expect that knowledge from this project will help design plants that have a well-working immune system without the cost for growth and development.

Why are you driven to contribute to the CropXR project?

CropXR consortium has lots of expertise in plant immunity signaling and growth, which motivates me to get the best out of my project. The collaborative atmosphere ensures me that the knowledge and expertise gained during my PhD research will contribute to gaining fundamental insights into plant physiology.

I feel that CropXR has an environment where people genuinely support each other’s research and one another.

In just my first year, I have built many connections within and outside of my work package. I feel that CropXR has an environment where people genuinely support each other’s research and one another. I felt this especially during my large-scale NPEC experiment, where colleagues from across the consortium came together to help.

What is the main challenge you face?

My project aims to uncover biological mechanisms at the intersection of immunity and developmental biology research. This requires combining knowledge from several research areas, and we have a strong team in the work package to tackle this. While translating findings to crops falls beyond the scope of my PhD project, I hope my work will contribute essential insights that enable future research and innovation for sustainable crop improvement.