Wheat things 🌾
Yellow rust postdoc in Saunders lab (JIC)
she/her 🌈
Isabel Faci
And a big thank you to our funders for supporting this work: ERC @ec.europa.eu, BBSRC @ukri.org, and @johninnescentre.bsky.social.
Some technical challenges remain!
We observed repeated heater failures under continuous use. The likely causes are now understood, and we’re working with the manufacturer on design adjustments for future deployments 🛠
Despite this, the heating system induced measurable phenotypic effects in wheat, such as earlier heading ⏮️
There’s still room for improvement, but we hope this version helps move things forward for field-based climate experiments 🌡🌱
Our new preprint is out on bioRxiv!
A regulation-compliant infrared heating system for UK field trials 🌾🔥
doi.org/10.64898/202...
Here’s what it looked like ↓
We adapted the established T-FACE design (Kimball et al., 2005) to meet UK/EU outdoor electrical regulations, working with engineers to rebuild key components.
The system uses six UKCA/CE-certified infrared heaters in a hexagon, with real-time canopy temperature feedback to maintain a target ΔT.
Huge thank you to the amazing team behind this work, especially Paul Rogerson, who led the electrical engineering effort.
With @cristobaluauy.bsky.social @simmojsimmo.bsky.social @antdodd.bsky.social, Darryl Playford and Martyn Hewitt 🙏
The thermal image gives a sense of heat distribution, but we also quantified temperature differences across time and space using multiple temperature loggers.
Here’s a figure showing ΔT (heated 🔴 – control 🔵) across the trial
