Carlos Erazo Melo is a MSc student in plant sciences at the University of Saskatchewan. Previously, he completed a master's program in biotechnology at Icesi University and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Nariño’s University, both in Colombia.
Carlos has three years of experience working in different research projects and institutions y/o universities in his home country. His work at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture was dedicated to the development of analytical methodologies to quantify plant metabolites with a significant impact on yield production in rice.
During his graduate work at Icesi University, he was interested in wild crop species of rice. Their adaptation capacity to a specific harsh environment was the starting point for developing multiple experiments. His research led him to questions about genomic regions behind the adaptability and consolidate wild species as a source of genetic regions to improve commercial crop varieties. In his experience as a visiting research student at USask and the Global Institute for Food Security, he worked with salt stress phenotyping of breeding lines to identify tolerant wheat germplasm and the phenotypic characterization of Arabidopsis mutant lines under different nutrient conditions, respectively.
His presentation will address dissecting the genetic basis of root gravitropism towards improving crop drought performance.