Guillaume Lobet

Juan Carlos Baca Cabrera (he/him) is the First Author of Decreased root hydraulic traits in German winter wheat cultivars over 100 years of breeding published April 2025. He is a Postdoc at Forschungszentrum Juelich.Education background includes: 2022 Ph.D at Technical University of Munich; 2016 MSc Environmental Planning and Engineering Ecology Technical University of Munich. Research interests include Plant modelling, soil-plant interactions, root hydraulics, stomatal control. Personal interests include Football, music, dogs.

Cabrera’s love for plant science started with his mother-in-law’s garden in Ecuador—around 100 species thriving in one place! academic.oup.com/plphys/artic...

#WeAreASPB

Happy to share my first paper ! 🚀
Thanks to the PEPA lab and my great coauthors @adrienheymans.bsky.social, Rémy Schoppach, Valentin Couvreur and @guillaumelobet.bsky.social !

"Secondary Growth and Exodermal Barriers Shape Local Root Hydraulics: Modeling Insights"
doi.org/10.64898/2026.01.27.701735

From dial-up days to now, travel through Wikipedia's history.

wikipedia25.org/en/which-wik...

As phosphorus becomes scarce, maize reorganizes its root system in ways that limit water uptake. This P-driven shift reduces root conductance and growth, showing that how roots are structured (not just how big they are) determines a plant’s ability to access water under stress.

🌱⚡🔬#RootStressWeek

Root system architecture reorganization under decreasing soil phosphorus lowers root system conductance of Zea mays by Felix Maximilian Bauer et al. in @annbot.bsky.social

#freeaccess article
👉 doi.org/qjpb

#RootBiology #RootPhysiology #PlantScience

Root anatomical gradients and cultivar differences underlie variation in root hydraulic properties in German winter wheat Root hydraulic properties affect water uptake in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and are strongly influenced by root anatomy, yet how they vary along root axes and interact with cultivar differences rema...

This integrated RAT → GRANAR → MECHA pipeline links anatomy → hydraulics → function in field-grown wheat.

Great work by Juan Baca Cabrera and great collab with the team of @hannahschneider.bsky.social

📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#roots #wheat #phenotyping #hydraulics #preprint

Using high-throughput root imaging + mechanistic modeling, we show:

• Strong anatomical gradients along wheat crown roots
• Modern cultivars have smaller tissues & fewer metaxylem vessels
• These reduce both axial & radial conductance → ~20% lower whole-root water uptake capacity in modern lines

Figure 1: Integrated phenotyping approach for the quantification of root hydraulic properties. Crown roots were sampled from a field experiment (Behrend et al., 2025, Preprint) and 2–3 cm root segments at the base, mid-root and distal positions were subsampled for cross section imaging using the Rapid Anatomics Tool (RAT) (Jones et al., 2025, Preprint). Traits obtained from the images were used as input for the quantification of root hydraulic properties using the GRANAR-MECHA modelling framework (Heymans et al., 2019)

🌾 New preprint!

“Root anatomical gradients and cultivar differences underlie variation in root hydraulic properties in German winter wheat.”

VACANCY - We’re currently hiring into two new senior roles:

Group Leader in Discovery Plant Sciences: okt.to/tqoasR
🗓️ Closing date: 25 August 2025

·An Independent Fellowship in Plant-Associated Microbial Interactions: okt.to/fDV0ha
🗓️ Closing date: 5 September 2025

Such a sad news. Amy was such a great scientific inspiration and colleague. She will be deeply missed.

Great annual fun day in Namur with the PEPA lab yesterday. Feeling very privileged to be working with such amazing people! @marcodago.bsky.social @adrienheymans.bsky.social @lucianm.bsky.social

If you have a strong interest in plant physiology and root biology and if you hold a MSc in plant science, crop science, biology, or related field, we have an interesting job offer!

➡️Read more: tinyurl.com/3dwsjv96

Hub metabolites at the root–microbiome interface: unlocking plant drought resilience Drought is one of the most devastating environmental challenges, severely affecting agriculture, ecosystems, and global food security. Effective strategies to predict and mitigate drought are limited. The root–soil–microbiome interface is pivotal in mediating plant resilience to drought. Recent studies highlight dynamics between plant root exudates and microbial communities, influencing stress tolerance through chemical signaling under drought. By integrating plant molecular biology, root chemistry, and microbiome research, we discuss insights into how these mechanisms can be harnessed to enhance crop resilience. Here, we focus on the interplay between plants and their microbiomes with metabolites as a central point of interactions. We synthesize recent developments, identify critical knowledge gaps, and propose future directions to leverage plant–microbe interactions to improve plant drought tolerance.

Hub metabolites at the root–microbiome interface: unlocking plant drought resilience #plantscience

#ASPBPlantDirectWednesday #ICYMI

📢 Even though the EU says they care about equality, CAP rules do not work for women farmers & actually discriminate against them.

Join our webinar on 28 May👇

www.agroecology-transect.net/events/gende...

With discussion on
🌱Narratives on gender & equality
🪱Strategies for tackling the barriers

openRxiv has arrived!

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of openRxiv as an independent, researcher-led nonprofit to oversee bioRxiv and medRxiv, the world’s leading preprint servers for life and health sciences.
openrxiv.org/introducing-...

#openRxiv #OpenScience #Preprints #bioRxiv #medRxiv

A graphic for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), showing a historical portrait of Marie Skłodowska-Curie overlaid with an image of four young researchers walking down a hallway. The European Commission logo is in the top left. Text reads: "Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – €404.3 million to support postdoctoral researchers”

Choose Science. Choose Europe.

A new Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 call is now open.

With a budget of €404.3 million, it will support around 1,650 researchers from Europe and beyond.

Apply by 10 September → europa.eu/!fBTMgF

& finally, we are looking for 4-year #phd student to identify the #root traits that most influence #water uptake dynamics using in silico #modeling. The PhD will be co-supervised by B Muller, from the INRAE.

🧪🌱💡 #joboffer #plantscijob #phd

Job offer here www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2zg4q...

Then we are looking for fully funded 4-year #phd student to to work on the #mapping of #root #trait variations European scale.

🧪🌱💡 #joboffer #plantscijob #phd #drooght005

Job offer here www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/iemn5...

We are also looking for 3-year #postdoc to work on the in silico prediction of root ideotypes for drought resistance across Europe. The Postdoc will be co-supervised by Dr. Pierre Martre, from the INRAE

🧪🌱💡 #joboffer #plantscijob #phd #Drooght004

Job offer here www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6oww2...

We are looking for a fully funded 2-year #postdoc to work on the development, validation, and deployment of a new multiscale root modelling pipeline.

🧪🌱💡 #joboffer #plantscijob #phd #drooght003

Job offer here www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4spy4...

Still open and time to apply ;)

Europe’s choice is clear.

To put science at the heart of its economy.

To become the home of scientific freedom and collaboration.

And to welcome talent from all over the world.

I’m glad to present the first elements of our Choose Europe Initiative.

→ europa.eu/!TTbWbJ

@benjamindelory.bsky.social Well done!

Conventional and organic farms with more intensive management have lower soil functionality Organic farming is often considered to be more sustainable than conventional farming. However, both farming systems comprise highly variable management practices. In this study, we show that in organi...

Conventional and organic farms with more intensive management have lower soil functionality | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Two-panel figure illustrating root hydraulic conductance in wheat cultivars. Panel (a) shows a line graph of pressure chamber measurements of root hydraulic conductance (Krs) over the years of release from 1900 to 2000, with a downward trend indicated by a dashed line and shaded confidence interval. Panel (b) presents CPlantBox simulations comparing root hydraulic conductance (Krs) over time (in days) for two cultivars: S. Dickkopf (1895) and Tommi (2002), with the older cultivar showing higher conductance.

New paper out in @plantphys.bsky.social :

Juan Baca Cabrera combined #field & #lab/ #structural & #functional / #invivo & #insilico data to analyse how root #hydraulic traits decreased in German winter #wheat cultivars over 100 years of breeding

academic.oup.com/plphys/advan...

banner for the summer school with the name and date on it

The 2nd edition of 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐥𝐮𝐱𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐢𝐥-𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 will be held at UCLouvain, BE, 8-12 Sept 2025.

The course will focus on water flow in the soil-rhizosphere-plant system, plant physiology and rhizosphere hydraulics.

www.uclouvain.be/en/research-...

thanks 😀

& finally, we are looking for 4-year #phd student to identify the #root traits that most influence #water uptake dynamics using in silico #modeling. The PhD will be co-supervised by B Muller, from the INRAE.

🧪🌱💡 #joboffer #plantscijob #phd

Job offer here www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2zg4q...

Then we are looking for fully funded 4-year #phd student to to work on the #mapping of #root #trait variations European scale.

🧪🌱💡 #joboffer #plantscijob #phd #drooght005

Job offer here www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/iemn5...

We are also looking for 3-year #postdoc to work on the in silico prediction of root ideotypes for drought resistance across Europe. The Postdoc will be co-supervised by Dr. Pierre Martre, from the INRAE

🧪🌱💡 #joboffer #plantscijob #phd #Drooght004

Job offer here www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6oww2...