Postdoctoral Research Associate - Cereal Crops

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Postdoctoral Research Associate - Cereal Crops

Numerous European research projects have shown in the last 40 years that mixtures of varieties have great potential in cereals to improve yield and quality stability, reduce the spread of diseases and slow down the breakdown of resistances.
However, up to now it is largely unknown which characteristics of the mixture partners are important to form a successful mixture. The present project aims to provide further insights into the research of wheat variety mixtures.
This project is split in three parts: field trials in small plots in a diallel design (combining all single varieties), a single plant trial under different conditions for plant growing analysis, and a quality analytical part of the field trial grains. The challenge is to propose new evaluation tools to improve cultivar characterization- and adaptation- to variety mixing ability and to climatic constraints, in a changing climate with limiting crop-growing conditions.

About us

Agroscope is the Swiss federal centre of excellence for research in the agriculture and food sector. Its researchers carry out their work at a number of sites in Switzerland. Headquartered in Bern-Liebefeld, Agroscope is attached to the Swiss Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research EAER.
This position is based at the group of Varieties and Production Techniques of Agroscope. The work will be carried out in collaboration with researchers of the INRAE of Dijon.

• coordinate the scientific aspects of the project
• contribute to develop protocols and to field data acquisition
• validate and improve existing models based on field results and integrate environmental constraints
• model specific mixing ability, validate it by field experiments
• test the possibility to reduce the number of key parameters in order to integrate them in regular breeding programs
• integrate the quality analyses of the samples in the global evaluation
• create an overview of all data of the project and general publications on mixing ability
• prepare reports on the ongoing results and workshop presentations for national meetings
• publish the outcomes of this research in peer-reviewed journals and present them at international scientific conferences

• PhD in the in crop- or, environmental sciences or related fields
• Strong interest in crop physiology, and understanding of field crops agronomy and cultivars management
• Some experience with crop modelling
• You are a communicative person, who is independent in his work and appreciate to work in a team
• You are proficient in statistical analysis (R), as well as IT skills, and have experience in writing scientific papers
• Proficiency in English; good knowledge of French and/or German would be advantageous (working languages of the group are French and English; some partners are German speaking)