Last week's #Monogram2026 conference was a whirlwind! Thank You to @aabiologists.bsky.social for brilliantly organising the @monogram-uk.bsky.social conference - makes sense to join forces and have a less fragmented UK Plant Science community.
#grasses #crop #cereals #ECR

And that's a wrap on #Monogram2026! Thank you to our sponsors @kwsgroup.bsky.social, RAGT, @newphyt.bsky.social & @novogene-europe.bsky.social

Huge congratulations to our New Phytologist poster prize winners Natasha Brock, Zoe Marshall & Hardik Patel 👏 👏 👏

See you all next year in Nottingham!

Read related work by Sarah McKim & colleagues @intbarleyhub.bsky.social @hutton.ac.uk on how the HvGDSL1 GDSL-motif Esterase/Lipase not only affects wax & #cutin deposition, but also controls hull-caryopsis attachment in #barley

📖 doi.org/10.1093/pcp/...

#PlantScience
#Monogram2026

#Monogram2026 finished with an innovative talk on engineering plant immune receptors from Jiorgos Kourelis @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social (Rank Prize New Lecturer @rankprize.bsky.social ) and a sneak peak at a new GWAS tool from @ensembl.org #syntheticbiology #GWAS

Last talk of #Monogram2026 (but by no means least!) we have the Rank Prize New Lecturer Award Winner: Jiorgos Kourelis 👏👏👏

Guiding us beautifully through synthetic biology approaches to build plant immune receptors 🌱

@jiorgoskourelis.bsky.social @rankprize.bsky.social #plantscience

A perfect end to #Monogram2026! 🌾 Our team of researchers and visiting colleagues had an incredible time sharing posters and talks this week. It is the hard work and dedication of these individuals that drive our research in plant resilience forward.
#PlantScience

Last day #Monogram2026! Besides talking about cereal grafting for drought tolerant trait transfer, I reconnected with colleagues, peers, friends and made new connections. Thanks to AAB and Monogram Network for awarding me a Travel Grant. @aabiologists.bsky.social @thepallavisinghlab.bsky.social

#Monogram2026 Session 9 -
Decoding Monocots: Genetics for Impact

🧬 Emily Carr @bristolbiosci.bsky.social
💧 David Ashworth @hutton.ac.uk
🌾 Denis-Florentin Sfrangeau @niab-uk.bsky.social

And we're back for the third and final day of #Monogram2026!

Eric Ober @niab-uk.bsky.social is our first keynote- reminding us that crop management practices & environment are just as important as the genetics

🌾🚜 Navigating the GxExM landscape, and finding ways forward for crop improvement 🚜🌾

Monogram 2026 = science + plushies 🧬🧸

Our Novogeno freebies are going FAST 👀
(Big ones. Small ones. All adorable.)

Final day - come grab yours! 🎁

#Monogram2026 #Genomics #Sequencing #PlantScience #Biotech #STEM

"People are underpinning all of our success and I think making more of those people is key" - Dame Ottoline Leyser @slcuplants.bsky.social spoke with @stephaniemswarbre.bsky.social on career insights and cultivating a diverse, inclusive research environment at #Monogram2026 #WomeninSTEM

Now it's time for the Women (& allies) in Crop Science discussion session with Dame Ottoline Leyser 🧪👩‍🔬

#Monogram2026 #womeninscience #plantscience
@camplantsci.bsky.social

Exciting to see the cutting-edge techniques on display at 2nd day of @monogram-uk.bsky.social #Monogram2026 - featuring precision gene editing, spatial transcriptomics, and AI-driven trait analysis presented by Sarah McKim, Stephen Pearce, Malcolm Bennett, Lei Ju, Kenan Tan

#Monogram2026 Session 8 -
Regenerative, Precision, Profitable: Practices that Work

🍺 Christoph Dockter @carlsbergfondet.dk
📏 Stephen Pearce @rothamsted.bsky.social
🌾 Anisa Blower @niab-uk.bsky.social
🧬 Pooja Satpathy @leibnizipk.bsky.social

I enjoyed talking about my work on cereal grafting as tool to transfer drought tolerant traits from pearl millet - to-rice, the transcriptome insight.
#Monogram2026 @robinsoncollege.bsky.social @thepallavisinghlab.bsky.social

I am at #Monogram2026 today presenting my poster on pearl millet-rice intergrafts! 🌾 My research focuses on their physiological performance under extreme drought stress, specifically looking at how we can improve water-use efficiency and drought tolerance💧 #PlantScience

#Monogram2026 Session 7 -
Measure What Matters: Traits, Throughout, Translation

🔬 Malcolm Bennett @uonresearch.bsky.social
🖥️ Lei Ju @niab-uk.bsky.social
🌾 Maxwell Asiedu, UoN
👉 Annalene Hansen @ibers.bsky.social

Two great talks by members of the Borrill group at #Monogram2026 today: Miles Curl telling us about drought tolerance in wheat and @beccatesta.bsky.social investigating the role of NAC3 in senescence in wheat. Great chairing of a whole session by @amy-newell.bsky.social too! Well done all 👍🏼

Exciting to share that our Research Assistant, Mouesanao Kandjoze, is presenting a poster on how grafting different rice varieties can be used to improve photosynthetic efficiency in #Monogram2026 🌾 This research is a key part of our efforts to boost crop resilience and productivity.
#PlantScience

#Monogram2026 Session 6 -
From Meristem to Harvest: Building the Plant (Continued!)

❇️ Yunchuan Liu @johninnescentre.bsky.social
🌾 Kenan Tan @leibnizipk.bsky.social
🧬 Becca Testa @beccatesta.bsky.social

#Monogram2026 Session 6 - From Meristem to Harvest: Building the Plant

Big session seeing us through to lunch, featuring not one but two Keynotes!

🕐 Alex Webb @alexwebblab.bsky.social @camplantsci.bsky.social
🌾 Sarah McKim @intbarleyhub.bsky.social @hutton.ac.uk

We are proud to see our Master student, Ella Whiteley, presenting her research at #Monogram2026! 🌾 Her poster explores RNAi rice mutants for aquaporins and evaluates their photosynthetic performance.
#PlantScience

Very interesting talk by @cathplantsci.bsky.social from @rothamsted.bsky.social on interactions between T-6-P and nitrogen and genotype in wheat. #Monogram2026

#Monogram2026 Session 5 -
Climate-proofing Monocots: Physiology that Delivers

🌾 Miles Curl @johninnescentre.bsky.social
❄️ Dominique Hirsz @leibnizipk.bsky.social
🍬 Catherine Famelton @cathplantsci.bsky.social @rothamsted.bsky.social

Really excellent talk on day 2 of #Monogram2026 by @ecarmosilva.bsky.social on improving wheat’s resilience to heat by studying rubisco activity during photosynthesis. Funded by @dsw-isp.bsky.social

Some lovely spring sunshine in Cambridge this morning as we begin Day 2 of #Monogram2026 with a great talk from Elizabete Carmo-Silva on the effects of temperature on photosynthetic productivity 🌾

@ecarmosilva.bsky.social @dsw-isp.bsky.social #plantscience

Malcolm Bennett from @uonresearch.bsky.social introduces the Rank Prize @rankprize.bsky.social support to cereal research at #Monogram2026

This afternoon's sessions highlighted nutrient and fibre-rich "super grains" barley, tef, millet, and oats. Could diversifying diets with these grains lead to a healthier future? #Monogram2026 with Nupur Tailor, Aiswarya Girija, Lizo Masters, Crispus Mbaluto, Miriam Schreiber

Fascinating talk by Bernice Waweru from @johninnescentre.bsky.social @cristobaluauy.bsky.social lab on kmer techniques for identification of candidate disease resistance genes
#Monogram2026

Excellent talk by @nikkiwalter.bsky.social from @uonresearch.bsky.social on N fixing bacterial inoculatants to improve wheat yields in SubSaharan Africa. Funded by @gatesfoundation.bsky.social Legume Technology and FCDO UK. #Monogram2026