Professor and researcher Gustavo Slafer and the crop physiology group he leads at Agrotecnio and the University of Lleida have received the Mensa Lleida award for scientific and technological knowledge. The award ceremony was held on Friday 12 April in the Auditori Joan Oró of the Parc Agrobiotech Lleida and was attended by another Agrotecnio-UdL researcher, Olga Martín-Belloso, who received the same award in 2021.
Gustavo Slafer, ICREA and University of Lleida research professor, leads the crop physiology group at Agrotecnio. With a team of 11 people including senior, postdoctoral and trainee staff, the research of the Crop Physiology group of Agrotecnio and the UdL focuses on “improving the quality, sustainability and productivity of grain crops, mainly wheat and barley, and providing knowledge and tools to design management strategies or genetic improvement that are more effective and efficient”. To this end, they have local, national and international funding and collaborations with laboratories all over the world.
Roxana Savin, senior researcher in the group, explains that “within the area of tolerance to the effects of climate change, in our laboratory we study the effects of heat stress and waterlogging. We do experiments with portable greenhouses and study the effect it has on fertility, yield and ear quality”.
Throughout his career, Gustavo Slafer has received other awards such as honorary professorships at the University of Nottingham (UK) and the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina).
According to Mensa, the association of people with a high IQ, the Mensa Lleida Knowledge Awards, which have been awarded since 2015, seek to reward contributions that make society a better place from different fields: science and technology, humanities and art, and entrepreneurship.
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