"Ozone pollution: A hidden threat to African crop production"
As part of the NERC-funded Official Development Assistance project ‘SUNRISE’ (https://www.ceh.ac.uk/sunrise), scientists of the ICP Vegetation
"Ozone pollution: A hidden threat to African crop production"
As part of the NERC-funded Official Development Assistance project ‘SUNRISE’ (https://www.ceh.ac.uk/sunrise), scientists of the ICP Vegetation Coordination Centre at CEH Bangor held an ozone pollution training workshop for African scientists from 24th – 26th September 2019. Five scientists, with a wide range of expertise, attended from Kenya, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. The workshop had 3 key aims:
1) Raise awareness of the threat of ozone pollution to food production in Sub-Saharan Africa.
2) Improve knowledge of the identification of ozone impacts on crops, assessment of areas at risk and present options for mitigating impacts.
3) Exchange knowledge and tools for stakeholder engagement (e.g. crop breeders & producers, agricultural extension workers, policy makers, small-hold farmers).
The workshop consisted of a series of activities and presentations over 3 days. The first day began with a background presentation on ozone pollution, including some information on ICP Vegetation. Then we shared some results from our experiments on the impacts of ozone on African crop species and varieties (including pearl and finger millet, wheat and common beans) in the CEH Bangor solardomes, conducted as part of the SUNRISE project. Lastly, we presented the ICP Vegetation ozone injury app (https://icpvegetation.ceh.ac.uk/get-involved/ozone-injury/record) and discussed the key symptoms of visible ozone injury on crops and how these can be distinguished from other causes of leaf damage such as viruses, fungal infections and pests and diseases. In the afternoon, we visited the CEH ozone exposure facilities (solardomes and free-air exposure) at Abergwyngregyn (https://www.ceh.ac.uk/our-science/research-facility/solardomes-and-ozone-field-release-system). We showed the workshop participants around the site and were able to demonstrate examples of visible ozone injury on a variety of different crop species.
On the second day, we presented an introduction to the DO3SE model developed by SEI York ( https://www.sei.org/projects-and-tools/tools/do3se-deposition-ozone-stomatal-exchange/), which is used to calculate ozone fluxes into leaves. We then discussed options for mitigating ozone impacts on crops and possible interactions between ozone and climate change. In the afternoon, there was a session on stakeholder engagement and knowledge transfer, including activities on designing a stakeholder event. The workshop participants were able to share their experience in working with stakeholders and running events for various projects for their own organisations, which was very useful. For example, using stakeholder mind maps to identify key stakeholders, and also