Plant Agriculture PhD Graduate Program Descriptive Transcript Summary: A brief overview of the Plant Agriculture PhD program with students describing research projects that they are working on. 00:00 - 00:04 [Music plays; White screen fades in to show Plant Agriculture logo and University of Guelph logo] Text: Plant Agriculture University of Guelph 00:05 - 00:24 [Screen shows Plant Ag students engaged in lab work and field activities; screen changes to show crops and farm scenes.] Female Narrator: The Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph is committed to improving life through innovative science, education and service in plant agriculture. Society’s expectations of agriculture now include a wide range of health and environmental services such as producing food with nutraceuticals, protecting biodiversity, mitigating climate change and providing alternative energy sources. 00:25 - 00:27 [Screen changes to show blue and orange text over white background] Text: Doctor of Philosophy, PhD in Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph Narrator: The Department of Plant Agriculture offers a PhD program 00:28 - 00:40 [Screen changes to show a quadrant of four images depicting different aspects of the plant sciences. White text is superimposed over the images.] Text: Plant Breeding and Genetics, Plant Biochemistry and Physiology, Crop Production Systems, Bioproducts. Doctor of Philosophy, PhD in Plant Agriculture. Narrator: in four broad fields of the Plant Sciences: Plant Breeding and Genetics, Plant Biochemistry and Physiology, Crop Production Systems and Bioproducts. Students conduct research on topics within these fields. 00:41 - 00:48 [Music fades out. Screen changes to show PhD student Amritpal in a Plant Ag science lab. White text is superimposed at the bottom of the screen.] Text: Amritpal Singh, PhD Student, Department of Plant Agriculture. Amritpal: My project is on sugar maples. Sugar maples are a very important tree. They form a very important part of the ecosystem. 00:49 - 00:56 [Screen shows maple trees and sap collection.] Amritpal: We need to boil large quantities of sap to produce little amounts of syrup. If we propagate trees which have higher sugar content 00:57 - 01:08 [Screen changes to show Amritpal.] Amritpal: then the amount of sap to be boiled reduces. We can increase the production. We can increase the productivity and we can also reduce the carbon footprint of this whole process. 01:09 - 01:30 [Screen shows Amritpal working with maple tree tissue culture in the lab.] Amritpal: So my project is on propagating superior trees, elite trees which have higher sugar content and to do this I am using tissue culture techniques and I'm also working on developing high density genetic markers, molecular markers, which I plan to associate with the genes of interest especially sugar content and tree architecture. 01:31 - 01:34 [Screen shows two containers of light and dark maple syrup.] Amritpal: Usually consumers tend to prefer very light syrup. 01:35 - 01:39 [Screen changes to show Amritpal.] Amritpal: I found that the darker syrups have higher antioxidant potential. 01:40 - 01:45 [Screen changes to Amritpal and a female student inspecting plant seedlings growing in containers.] Amritpal: Sugar maple is a recalcitrant meaning it is very difficult to propagate it using tissue culture. 01:46 - 01:55 [Screen changes to show Amritpal.] Amritpal: With modification of light intensity we could overcome the limitations of all previous researchers [music fades in] and now we are able to multiply sugar maple in large numbers. 01:56 - 02:08 [Screen shows two faculty members examining handwritten ledgers of Ontario Agricultural College potato varieties from the late 1800's.] Narrator: Since the late 1800's, plant agricultural scientists at the University of Guelph have broadly impacted the daily lives of growers, consumers and industry in Canada and throughout the world. Researcher scientists in the Department of Plant Agriculture 02:09 - 02:27 [Screen shows images of plant varieties developed by OAC: potato, asparagus, peach, barley and soybean.] Narrator: release and test new crop, fruit and vegetable varieties that increase yields, resist disease and pests, resist chilling, add value to farmers' fields, and benefit the environment, the consumer and industry, helping to bring more profit and choice to rural areas. 02:28 - 02:34 [Screen changes to show PhD student Mohammad in field where pinto beans are being grown. White text is superimposed at the bottom of the screen. Music fades out.] Text: Mohammad Erfatpour, PhD Student, Department of Plant Agriculture. Mohammad: I'm looking at the non-darkening gene in pinto bean. Actually, seed coat in pinto bean turns brown during storage 02:35 - 02:54 [Screen shows close ups of pinto bean plants in the field. Mohammad and a male colleague are inspecting them.] Mohammad: so it causes value losses as consumers think that these beans are old or aged. We know that the beans are a good source of protein and dietary fibre so I'm trying to improve the quality by developing non-darkening pinto beans. 02:55 - 02:58 [Screen changes to show Mohammad.] Mohammad: To do that I developed a mapping population. 02:59 - 03:06 [Screen changes to show Mohammad seated in the laboratory using a measuring tool.] Mohammad: I'm going to study the correlation between the non-darkening trait and other important agronomic traits such as 03:07 - 03:12 [Screen changes to show Mohammad.] Mohammad: days to flowering, again, days to maturity, plant architecture which is very important 03:13 - 03:22 [Screen changes to show a combine harvesting pinto beans.] Mohammad: and also yield. I used to work as a lab technician back home in Iran. I was passionate about continuing my education. 03:23 - 03:30 [Screen changes to show Mohammad.] Mohammad: Everything that I'm learning I'm actually applying it. [music fades in] I'm using it, that’s the interesting thing. I have the opportunity 03:31 - 03:36 [Screen shows Mohammad and male colleague inspecting pinto beans in the field.] Mohammad: to use my knowledge in the field to get experience with what I learn. 03:37 - 03:41 [Screen shows four students planting seedlings in an outdoor plot.] Narrator: PhD Graduates will possess a strong foundation on which they can be highly successful 03:42 - 04:00 [Screen shows students engaged in various plant sciences activities. White text is superimposed.] Text: Government, Industry, Consulting, Academics Narrator: in science-related positions in a variety of working environments including government, industry, consulting and academics. New state-of-the-art technologies and processes being developed by our researchers are helping to bring about a new bio-based renewable economy, better for both the farm ecosystem and the consumer. 04:01 - 04:24 [Music fades out. Screen changes to show PhD student Lauren in a Plant Ag science lab. White text is superimposed at the bottom of the screen.] Text: Lauren Erland, PhD Student, Department of Plant Agriculture. Lauren: My project focuses on looking at plant growth regulators and specifically melatonin and serotonin which are kind of a nontraditional but new category. So most people are familiar with them as mammalian neurohormones and neurotransmitters but they’re actually present in plants and so my project is really focusing on understanding why they're there and how they’re accomplishing effects that we may see from them. 04:25 - 04:39 [Screen shows Lauren meeting with Plant Ag colleagues and inspecting plant seedlings in a container with a male student.] Lauren: It's very interesting for melatonin and serotonin. Because they are found in humans it has really big impact for things like consuming crops and medicinal plants because if we have high amounts of these different compounds in plants it's something we need to know. 04:40 - 04:53 [Screen changes to show Lauren.] Lauren: Melatonin and serotonin are very strongly implicated in promoting plant growth and survival under stressful conditions so by understanding how they work we can actually take that and exploit it to improve plant growth in an industrial situation. 04:54 - 05:20 [Screen changes to show Lauren conducting research in the laboratory.] For me I think the most interesting part is that I'm able to combine two usually disparate fields. I'm doing a lot of plant physiology and microscopy work but I'm also able to combine that with analytical chemistry and those are two fields that are usually very separate but by bringing them together you really get to see a full picture but you also get the numbers behind it. It's very unique and it's very exciting. The facilities at the University of Guelph are amazing for plant research. I couldn't believe it when I found how much 05:21 - 05:26 [Screen shows greenhouses and students using cryogenic equipment in the lab. Music fades in.] Lauren: greenhouse space there was. So we have access to analytical equipment and we have access to cryo equipment and we have access to microscopes 05:27 - 05:34 [Screen changes to show Lauren.] Lauren: which is very unusual but it all is brought together under this conservation umbrella and it makes it a very uniquely rewarding place to work. 05:35 - 05:50 [Screen changes to show images of University of Guelph campus and nearby walking trails.] Lauren: The thing I noticed the most when I first got to Guelph was how big but how beautiful the campus is. Students are really invited into Guelph and it makes a very welcoming city to move to. Guelph actually has a really great system of walking trails that are very accessible from campus and from 05:51 - 05:53 [Screen changes to show Lauren.] a lot of the other areas in Guelph so that's been very nice. 05:54 - 05:59 [Screen changes to show Amritpal teaching a female student in a Plant Ag science lab. White text is superimposed at the bottom of the screen.] Text: Research & Teaching Assistantships] Narrator: PhD graduate students receive generous Research†Assistantships which can be supplemented by numerous Teaching Assistantships. 06:00 - 06:04 [Screen changes to show convocation ceremony. White text is superimposed at the bottom of the screen.] Text: Awards & Scholarships Narrator: There are several scholarships available in the Department and College to support their programs. 06:05 - 06:11 [White screen fades in. Blue and orange text appears over white background] Text: Doctor of Philosophy, PhD in Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, pagrad@uoguelph.ca, (519) 824-4120 ext. 56077] Narrator: For more information†regarding†the application process please contact the Graduate Co-ordinator. 06:12 - 06:16 [Transition to Plant Agriculture logo over white screen.] Text: Plant Agriculture [Music fades out. Screen fades to black.]