My name is Pieter-Willem Hendriks. I have a strong agricultural background as a son and grandson of farmers and a farmer myself. Indeed, I was born in 1980 in the Netherlands on a mixed farm with crops, cattle and pigs. In 1992 my parents decided to sell the farm and move to France to farm there on a bigger scale. I, therefore, have the pleasure of being brought up with different European cultures.
From high school on, my education is French. I went to the University in Tours for a Bachelor's in Biology and did my Master's degree in Agricultural Engineering in Dijon. As part of that course, we were asked to do internships overseas. I took this opportunity to go to a farm in Alberta, Canada, the first year, to work as a cowboy. In the second year, I managed to get an internship at CSIRO, Canberra Australia, where I studied wheat tillering. This went so nicely that I came back for my Master’s thesis a year later in 2004 on the same topic of reduced tillering of wheat and related root growth.
After I graduated, I went back to the family farm in central France and ran it for 14 years. I was managing a farm of 250ha with crops, cattle, standard production and free-range pigs. I diversified our productions and started a new business of selling the meat we produced on the farm directly to our clients. But Science was still running around in my brain.
In 2018 I got the opportunity to
(successfully) apply for a PhD project. So early 2018, my wife, my three
daughters and I sold our farm in France and moved to Australia for a new
adventure. I was studying with my former Master’ supervisor Dr Gregg Rebetzke
at CSIRO, and Prof. Leslie Weston from the Charles Sturt University (CSU) of
Wagga-Wagga. During my thesis, I examined the competitiveness of wheat against
weeds. More specifically, assessing how modifying early shoot vigour
improves competitiveness above-ground and modifies root traits that are
important for competition below-ground.
I joined Lincoln University as a Lecturer in October 2022 after graduating with my PhD.
Outside my work (which is also a bit of my hobby) I love to spend time with my family and travel. I like running or a good rugby (union) game. I enjoy reading historical novels.
19
Selection for early vigour in wheat modifies shoot and root epidermis cell size, numbers, and competitive ability.
P-W HENDRIKS, P.R. RYAN, S. GURUSINGHE, P. HANDS, V. ROLLAND, L. A. WESTON, G. REBETZKE, E. DELHAIZE
Lincoln University, Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, PO Box 58054, Lincoln 7647, Christchurch, New Zealand
Competition with weeds is an ongoing problem
in wheat production. The cost of weeds, increasing concerns around food safety, soil health, herbicide resistance and the reduction in the
release of novel products suggest a need for an integrated weed management
approach. Improving the competitive ability of wheat is one of the tools
available in this integrated weed management. Above-ground, increased early vigour allows wheat to close the canopy
faster and shade the weeds without deteriorating the harvest index. A recurrent
selection for shoot vigour increased wheat leaf width. Breeding efforts
including germplasm from this selection, resulted in genotypes displaying larger
leaves than commercial wheat cultivars. However, the mechanism behind the
modified leaf width remained unexplained. This study examined the shoot
epidermis to understand the mechanism behind increased leaf growth and extended
the cellular analysis to root development in replicated controlled environments
experiments. Results show that the increase of shoot vigour through recurrent
selection and breeding coincided with an increase in cell file numbers and,
counterintuitively, with a reduction in cell sizes of the different leaf
epidermis cell types and an increase in stomata numbers. With increasing
vigour, root epidermis cell volumes were reduced, while root hair length and
number increased