Research at INRES
At the Institute for Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES), 14 professorships and other working groups research comprehensively on a wide range of issues in the entire field of plant production and agricultural resource conservation.
Research at INRES covers a number of scales and ranges, for example, from basic research on protein folding in plants or the breeding of novel crop species to the diagnosis of plant diseases and practice-oriented research on agroforestry systems.
The variety of topics includes the problem of microplastics in soils, the defence mechanisms of plants against harmful nematodes, the role of microbes in soils or the inclusion of entire value chains in renewable raw materials. A wide range of research methods are used, from bioinformatic analysis of plant genomes, molecular biological characterisation of root growth and the rhizosphere microbiome, to field experiments under conventional and organic management or even landscape experiments.
INRES is closely integrated into the PhenoRob cluster of excellence, where it’s investigating what a digitally supported agriculture of the future might look like. This is done, among other things, through modelling, molecular biology-based diagnosis of nutrient deficiencies and plant diseases, as well as field trials.
Research at INRES examines globally important crop species such as wheat, maize, barley and rice, as well as a large number of other agricultural crops, including fruit, vegetable and ornamental plants, fodder plants, medicinal and spice plants, and trees as renewable raw materials.
The INRES working groups are active in various regions, both locally in the Rhineland and in tropical and subtropical climates or in the Atacama Desert. An important aspect at INRES is the close involvement of students in research and a strong research and teaching.
