19 April, 2015
Stephanie Saade, from The Salt Lab, joins Prof. Klaus Pillen's lab in Martin Luther University Halle, Germany for three months, in order to investigate sheath hairiness and ear length in barley.
"As part of my PhD project in The Salt Lab, I am trying to identify QTLs associated with salinity tolerance in barley. One of the populations used to carry out this study is the HEB-25, a Nested Association Mapping barley population developed by Prof. Klaus Pillen and consisting of Barke (recipient) crossed to 25 wild donors. In order to familiarize myself with this population, phenotyping in the field, and the analysis of QTLs, I travelled to Halle (Saale) in Germany. Under the supervision of Prof. Pillen, I will be scoring sheath hairiness, awn length, and ear length of the HEB-25 population under low and high nitrogen treatments in the Kühnfeld experimental field. Data collected from this year field trial and from a trial carried out in 2013 will be analyzed in SAS software to identify QTLs underlying the previously mentioned traits.
Besides the scientific expertise that I am gaining, I rejoice of this opportunity to explore the German culture, meet new people, and perhaps learn a new language."