Highlights

IPSAM Conference NUI Galway

Last week Ciara had the opportunity to share some highlights from our research and results so far at the Irish Plant Scientists Association Meeting (IPSAM) Conference at NUI Galway. It was a chance to reflect on what we have found after one year. It was a fascinating conference with a very diverse range of projects and research, from molecular/genetic aspects to seaweeds and seagrasses and even plant science in space. It was also great to see the research by many colleagues from Plant Sciences at the School of BEES at University College Cork.

Clover featured on RTE

We were delighted to see Ear to the Ground feature an episode on the benefits of using clover. It really sums up the potential that clover has to reduce greenhouse gases and help support better livestock performance while maximising grass growth - all without the use of chemical nitrogen fertiliser.

Ella McSweeney talks to Denis O'Donovan about the benefits of growing clover on his farm and to Dr James Humphreys, an expert on sustainable pasture-based dairy production who has been studying clover for 25 years at Teagasc.

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Events

Plants for the Future - Science Week 2024

ARID was delighted to take part in Plants for the Future, a public outreach event at the School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences of University College Cork on Tuesday November 12th 2024. This exhibition was part of Science Week and helped demonstrate how plants can help address challenges such as biodiversity, food security, climate change, pollution and pesticide use.

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Grand Challenges outreach event

ARID recently took part in the 'Grand Challenges' module event for 120 1st year Biological, Earth & Environmental Science (BEES) students at UCC to showcase the benefits and solutions that plants and plant sciences provide for the many challenges facing society and the environment. Alongside colleagues in Dr Rossana Henriques' research team, we spent the afternoon giving short presentations about our work and hopefully inspiring students to take a closer look at plant life.

Pollen dissection & staining

The process of dissecting a flower requires sharp tweezers. An individual floret is taken from a clover flower, each normally containing 10 anthers. The outer parts of the flower are removed, and the inner 'keel' is opened carefully. The anthers are at the tips of the stamens and contain the pollen.

Anthers are placed in a preservative mix if being stored for future analysis, or can be put on a slide with a drop of stain (dye). The staining solution and anthers are heated (~30 seconds) to ensure the stain enters into viable pollen grains. Sometimes the anthers have to be punctured with a sharp tweezers carefully so that the anther bursts to release the grains.

White clover pollen grains under 20x magnification

White clover pollen grains are not visible to the naked eye, so we view them under magnification. Each pollen grain is about 0.025mm.

The pollen grains undergo a staining protocol so that we can assess their viability. Viable ones take up the stain and are stained pink-violet, the ones which are non-viable are white or may be malformed.