Walid Sadok

man with beard in blue suit
Associate Professor
[email protected]
612-625-8291
546 Borlaug Hall
Sadok Lab Website
Education

Montpellier SupAgro, 2005
 

Areas of Interest

Plant physiology, Agronomy, Climate change

Teaching

PLSC 3005W "Introduction to Plant Physiology," spring semester every year 
AGRO 5234 "Plant Physiology for the Applied Sciences: Topical Issues and New Frontiers," fall semester every other year

Research

My group focuses on identifying traits to enhance crop resilience towards environmental stressors driven by climate change (e.g., drought, heat, freezing). Our approach leverages concepts from eco-physiology, agronomy, agro-ecology, functional ecology, genetics/breeding and sustainability science. Experimentation relies on 1) various techniques to identify mechanisms enabling plant tolerance to abiotic stressors under various environments (growth chamber to field), 2) a 'translational' component to develop high-throughput phenotyping approaches relevant to breeding and/or predict yield outcomes under current and future scenarios based on the identified traits.

Select Publications

Novick, K. A., Ficklin, D. L., Grossiord, C., Konings, A. G., Martínez-Vilalta, J., Sadok, W., . . . McDowell, N. G. (2024). The impacts of rising vapour pressure deficit in natural and managed ecosystems. Plant Cell and Environment. doi:10.1111/pce.14846 

Zhen, X., Dobbratz, M., Jungers, J. M., & Sadok, W. (2024). Is interannual grain yield decline of intermediate wheatgrass influenced by management and climate in the Upper Midwest. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 362, 108856. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2023.108856

Monnens, D., Denison, R. F., & Sadok, W. (2023). Rising vapor-pressure deficit increases nitrogen fixation in a legume crop. New Phytologist, 239(1), 54-65. doi:10.1111/nph.18929

Koehler, T., Wankmüller, F. J. P., Sadok, W., & Carminati, A. (2023). Transpiration response to soil drying versus increasing vapor pressure deficit in crops: physical and physiological mechanisms and key plant traits. Journal of Experimental Botany, 74(16), 4789-4807. doi:10.1093/jxb/erad221 

Tamang, B. G., Monnens, D., Anderson, J. A., Steffenson, B. J., & Sadok, W. (2022). The genetic basis of transpiration sensitivity to vapor pressure deficit in wheat. Physiologia Plantarum, 174(5), e13752. doi:10.1111/ppl.13752

López, J. R., Tamang, B. G., Monnens, D. M., Smith, K. P., & Sadok, W. (2022). Canopy cooling traits associated with yield performance in heat-stressed oat. European Journal of Agronomy, 139, 126555. doi:10.1016/j.eja.2022.126555

López, J., Way, D. A., & Sadok, W. (2021). Systemic effects of rising atmospheric vapor pressure deficit on plant physiology and productivity. Global Change Biology, 27(9), 1704-1720. doi:10.1111/gcb.15548

Sadok, W., Lopez, J. R., & Smith, K. P. (2021). Transpiration increases under high-temperature stress: Potential mechanisms, trade-offs and prospects for crop resilience in a warming world. Plant Cell and Environment, 44(7), 2102-2116. doi:10.1111/pce.13970

Sadok, W., & Jagadish, S. V. K. (2020). The hidden costs of nighttime warming on yields. Trends in Plant Science, 25(7), 644-651. doi:10.1016/j.tplants.2020.02.003

Sadok, W., Lopez, J. R., Zhang, Y., Tamang, B. G., & Muehlbauer, G. J. (2020). Sheathing the blade: Significant contribution of sheaths to daytime and nighttime gas exchange in a grass crop. Plant, Cell & Environment, 43(8), 1844-1861. doi:10.1111/pce.13808

 

You can find more of Walid Sadok's published research here.