Culham Research Group
Just another blogs.reading.ac.uk site
Skip to content
  • Home
  • About
  • Advent Botany
    • Advent Botany 2014
    • Advent Botany 2015
    • Advent Botany 2016
    • Advent Botany 2017
    • Advent Botany 2019
    • Taxonomic index to #AdventBotany
  • PhD Students
    • Ahmed Gawhari – PhD 2016
    • Ana Simoes
    • Anas Tawfeeq
    • Azi Jamaludin
    • Donald Zulu
    • Jordan Bilsborrow
    • Maria Christodoulou – PhD 2016
    • Tomos Jones
    • Widad Aljuhani – PhD 2015
    • Kálmán Könyves – PhD 2014
    • Marshall Heap – PhD 2014
    • Ahmed El-Banhawy
    • Hassan Rankou
    • Oli Ellingham
    • Aramide Dolapo Oshingboye – L’Oreal Visiting Fellowship 2014/2015
  • Projects
← 2016 IS-MPMI XVII Congress
Powdery Mildews of Portland, Oregon →

MPMI16

Posted on July 23, 2016 by Oliver Ellingham

The 17th IS-MPMI congress was a great success for the almost two thousand members involved. Presentations varied largely, with specialists and generalists all showing off their microbial knowledge on topics entailing plant-microbe interactions; their coevolution, signalling, hormones, symbioses and ecology. And it was agreed that Phytophtora (the plant-destroyer) was the greatest microbial threat to plants.

13820766_10155024380337678_442441839_n

I presented an overview of my work at the University of Reading as well as exclusively on the Powdery Mildew Citizen Science Survey. Both were successful and stimulated conversation.

Amongst the relentless schedule we were given Wednesday afternoon off. A local tour company was on hand to provide entertainment and they helped myself and around 20 other conference goers to explore Oregon’s famously productive agricultural land. The state is lush and seems to grow everything one could imagine and more — the local supermarkets and farmers markets are fascinating to explore for food, cut flowers and horticultural plants. It is also a hotbed of local products — great breweries, fruit and vegetables, foraged berries and mushrooms, and vineyards. When in Rome…

13820503_10155024390242678_1105030854_nOur tour focused largely on the wine producing regions and we were lucky enough to sample wines from three different vineyards. While the state of California is most famous for its great quantity of wine produced (with an economy fourth largest in the world if it was considered a country), Oregon is an area that rivals European producers for quality. The vines themselves are grown exclusively on the slopes of the Willamette Valley. Here they are made to work for their nutrients, unlike other crops on the valley floor. This enables the vines to establish an extensive root network; digging down through varying soil layers and giving the grapes themselves great complexity of flavours.

Throughout my trip I was on the lookout for my favourite fungus in order to see if its growth and favourite hosts varied much from the UK. I have collated these into a separate blog.

13823464_10155024390217678_756668560_n

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • Pocket
  • Print
  • More
  • Reddit
  • Google

Like this:

Like Loading...

About Oliver Ellingham

PhD student at the University of Reading. Working on ID techniques of powdery mildew Fungi. Interested in mycology, plant pathology and arboriculture.
View all posts by Oliver Ellingham →
This entry was posted in PhD research, Public Engagement with Science, RHS research. Bookmark the permalink.
← 2016 IS-MPMI XVII Congress
Powdery Mildews of Portland, Oregon →
Logging In...

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • 1 Reply
  • 0 Comments
  • 0 Tweets
  • 0 Facebook
  • 1 Pingback
Last reply was March 30, 2017
  1. PhD Conferences 2013-2017 | Culham Research Group
    View March 30, 2017

    […] to and within the USA to interacting with the international diversity of scientists present is one I am unlikely to forget. I presented a summary to date of my research into improving identification techniques coupled with […]

    Reply
  • Recent Posts

    • A personal reflection on Wild about Weeds – author Jack Wallington
    • Community fungal DNA workshop
    • #AdventBotany 2019 Day 6: Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly…
    • Final call: help identify potentially invasive plants
    • #AdventBotany 2019 Day 2: Death by chocolate
  • Recent Comments

    • Specimens, Specimens: Uses | Herbarium World on Brief notes on some Percival Wheats
    • Tendrils: 151218 – The Unconventional Gardener on Advent Botany 2015 – Day 15: Mahleb
    • Tendrils: 151218 – The Unconventional Gardener on Advent Botany 2015 – Day 17: Sgan t’sek
    • Tomos Jones on A personal reflection on Wild about Weeds – author Jack Wallington
    • Future Invaders in your Garden? – The Gardening Zoologist on Future invaders at RHS Chelsea
  • Categories

    • Advent
    • Art
    • Catalogue of Life
    • Collectors
    • e-learning
    • Hawkins Research Group
    • Herbarium RNG
    • i4Life
    • MSc Plant Diversity
    • PhD research
    • Public Engagement with Science
    • RHS research
    • Type
    • Uncategorized
    • Welcome
  • Meta

    • Register
    • Log in
    • Entries RSS
    • Comments RSS
    • WordPress.org
    • RSS - Posts
    • RSS - Comments
  • Subscribe to Blog via Email

    Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  • Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
Culham Research Group
Proudly powered by WordPress.
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: