Blog

Brexit is a challenge without precedents that may produce big changes in British agriculture. The term agriculture not only describes farmers growing food crops but also processing, infrastructure, suppliers, sellers etc. that form a complex supply chain to UK consumers. All of these sectors will be affected when Brexit is executed and now there is the added possibility that the UK will leave the EU without a deal.

Libby Rowland is Research and Development Officer for herbs at Vitacress - a fresh produce supplier, specialising in watercress, salads and fresh herbs. She was offered the position during her time as a PhD student with Taylor Lab, during which she was funded by J Sainsbury’s to improve irrigation practice in pot herb production.

Arguably the best day of the year in Davis is Picnic Day and it’s nearly here! Picnic day is a day where the university community come together to host a giant event to exhibit the excellent work carried out at the university. The event is targeted towards the whole community; prospective and current students, families, alumni, staff, faculty, and the greater Davis and regional communities.

Taylor lab would like to wish everyone a happy new year. At this time of year we would like to reflect on our last year’s achievements. 

Last year was an eventful year for us with two of our PhD students submitting their theses, ten publications, six lab members new to our UC Davis campus, three new studentship appointments and a former student is visiting the department as part of her fellowship. 

If people think of the UK in the winter, Dickensian images come to mind of rolling hills covered in snow and maybe even images of days when the river Thames would freeze over and fairs would be held on the ice. In reality, this was only the case until the 19th Century but today snow in the UK rarely lasts more than a couple of days and the worst we have to deal with is rain. Moving to California, palm trees and beautifully sunny landscapes came to mind. Again, those picturesque images aren’t the whole story.

A new analysis in Taylor Lab suggests that long- term, multi-generational response of plants to rising CO2  are similar to those found in single generation FACE experiments, with consequences for continued global greening and future higher rates of photosynthesis.

Time-traveling plants that could move forward and backwards across the decades would be extremely valuable in understanding how these photosynthesizing organisms are likely to respond to the altered conditions predicted as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change.

Caspar Donnison is a second year PhD student in our lab, working on the ADVENT and MAGLUE projects researching the natural capital implications of bioenergy policy, specifically with regards to bioenergy with carbon capture and sequest

Caspar Donnison is a second year PhD student in our lab, working on the ADVENT and MAGLUE projects researching the natural capital implications of bioenergy policy, specifically with regards to bioenergy with carbon capture and sequest

Zoe Harris is a NERC Industrial Innovation Research Fellow at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London. She recently visited Davis to work with collaborators and has written a guest blog.

21st April 2018- blog, photos and video by Suzanne Milner  

My PhD started back in January 2000 and I was the first student between Gail and Vitacress Salads Ltd - Something I was very proud to be.  I joined Vitacress full time after a summer spell working with Poplar in Italy and I was in various posts there until March 2015.  In my time at Vitacress I was responsible for a number of innovations and improvements and remained a visitor at Southampton University where I was involved in the research programmes that followed my PhD.

Nine years after starting a PhD with Vitacress, I am now working as an Agronomist for the company. 

Fangzhu Zhang is now a Lecturer in China Planning at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL (2011-present). She worked at the School of City Planning, Cardiff University (2006-2011) and University of Southampton (2000-2002) before joining the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL. She received her Ph.D. degree from Gail Taylor’s Lab,  the University of Southampton, UK in 2006. Her main research interests include innovation and science parks, especially biotechnology R&D in EU and China, sustainable development and Chinese eco-cities.