The Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics Spring Seminar Series will conclude on Thursday, April 18, with Dr. Amélie Gaudin presenting "Building climate resilience through crop diversification and soil health."
The seminar will be held at 2:30 p.m. in 306 Borlaug Hall. A reception will follow at 3:30 p.m. in 302 Borlaug.
Gaudin will talk about how diversifying and redesigning cropping systems based on agroecological principles can provide new avenues to mitigate climate risks in agriculture. She will share the resilience-building potential of several strategies implemented and tested by California and Midwest farmers and discuss some of the mechanistic underpinnings.
Gaudin is an associate professor and Endowed Chair of Agroecology in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California Davis. She obtained a Ph.D. in Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph (Canada) and worked as an agroecologist at various CGIAR centers to sustainably intensify smallholder farming systems prior to joining UC Davis. She currently leads a dynamic and diverse team of students and postdoctoral researchers to characterize outcomes of regenerative agricultural models that have conservation of natural resources, agrobiodiversity, and ecosystem services as a basis for improvements. She engages communities with the science of agricultural ecology by collaborating with and learning from a diverse group of students, growers, advisors, and policy advocates. Her research integrates concepts and methodologies from various disciplines to measure multifunctional outcomes of ecological intensification and regenerative strategies on soil health, C sequestration, and drought resilience. She is also interested in better understanding root system and rhizosphere ecology and their potential to harness improvements in soil health, sequester carbon, and decrease crop water and nutrients requirements. You can learn more about Gaudin's work here: http://gaudin.ucdavis.edu