Belowground Crop Ecology

Root development and drought tolerance: we investigate the effect of rooting depth and distribution on tolerance towards environmental stressors such as drought.

Protein crops: we aim to develop more sustainable cropping systems including legumes with improved yield stability as a protein source for food and feed. We provide novel knowledge on the root systems of forage and grain legumes and the significance for more climate-smart systems.

Plant based food: We work with old cultivars of pea to find well-tasting, high quality protein sources that are agronomical realistic to grow for plant based foods

Intercropping: we aim to unravel root competition, facilitation and complementarity when growing two or more species together.

Root system development in 3D:  we are applying CT scanning to root systems in soil uncovering the three dimensional root development over time.

• IMFABA - Examining if drought tolerance in different lines of faba bean is dependent on rooting depth and distribution in order to increase yield stability.
• PEAS & LOVE - Potential of old pea cultivars for human consumption. Genetic characterization, quality and agronomy.
• Root development in forage legumes Cultivar differences in rooting depth and distribution of red clover, white clover and lucerne and effect of intercropping on root development.
• RootOutP Investigating interactions between plant roots and phosphorus in soil using CT scanning
• Novo Nordisk Foundation Start Package grant Tenure-Track Assistant Professor
• Carbon Sequestrate in mixtures
• ClimateClover - Drought tolerance in white clover as a future breeding target
• Deep Carbon: quantifying the role of ley mixture roots in carbon sequestration
• N2CROP
• DIGIFABA

• Siegwart L, Muller-Stover D, Dresbøll DB, Larsen J, Colombi T, Keller T, van der Bom F. 2025. Belowground Interactions in a Barley Cultivar Mixture: Root Distribution and Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Contributions to Uptake of Heterogeneous Phosphorus. Physiologia Plantarum 177(4) e70363 https://doi.org/10.1111/ppl.70363
• Wacker TS, Smith AG, Jensen SM, Pfluger T, Hertz VG, Rosenqvist E, Liu F, Dresbøll DB. 2025. Stomata morphology measurement with interactive machine learning: accuracy, speed, and biological relevance? Plant Methods 21(1), 95 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13007-025-01416-2
• Wacker, TS, van der Bom, F, Delory, BM, Vetterlein, D, Postma, JA, Nagel, KA, Schnepf, A, & Dresbøll, DB (2024). Back to the roots: standardizing root length density terminology. Plant and Soil. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-024-07075-x
• Wacker TS & Dresbøll DB. 2023. Checking the pulse – perspectives on grain legume production. Trends in Plant Science 28 (9): 991-994. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2023.06.004