Gustavo A. Slafer

Universitat de Lleida (UdL)

Life & Medical Sciences

Dr. Gustavo A. Slafer (PhD, University of Melbourne) is ICREA Research Professor at the University of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain), where he is also Associate Professor of the Department of Crop & Forest Sciences. He is also currently (i) Honorary Professor of the School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham, UK; (ii) Associate Editor of Crop Science and Euphytica; and (iii) member of the Editorial Boards of Field Crops Research, European Journal of Agronomy and Food and Energy Security. Until Dec. 2016 he has co-edited 6 scientific books, by publishers in USA and UK, and published 40 chapters in international books and 165 papers in international journals). His h-index at Dec. 2016 was 46 using WebOfScience (CoreCollection). He has been invited several times to deliver talks on different aspects of crop physiology in international conferences.


Research interests

I study the mechanisms underlying the responses of grain crops to environmental and genetic factors. My research approach has been always focused at the crop level of organization. The environmental factors include management practices such us irrigation or fertilization (among other less manageable environmental factors including radiation, photoperiod and temperature). Genetic factors include from general breeding strategies to the action of particular genes or groups of genes. The general aim is identifying alternatives to traditional farming and breeding practises to enhance the efficiency of resource use, as an avenue to increase simultaneously both crop productivity and agricultural sustainability.

Selected publications

– Marti J, Araus JL & Slafer GA 2016, ‘Sink-strength determines differences in performance between bread and durum wheat’, Field Crops Research, 198, 101 – 111.

– Gonzalez-Navarro OE, Griffiths S, Molero G, Reynolds MP & Slafer GA 2016, ‘Variation in developmental patterns among elite wheat lines and relationships with yield, yield components and spike fertility’, Field Crops Research, 196, 294 – 304.

– Elia M, Savin R & Slafer GA 2016, ‘Fruiting efficiency in wheat: physiological aspects and genetic variation among modern cultivars’, Field Crops Research, 191, 83 – 90.

– Zanga D, Capell T, Slafer, GA, Christou P & Savin R 2016, ‘A carotenogenic mini-pathway introduced into white corn does not affect development or agronomic performance’, Scientific Reports, 6, 38288.

– Gabaldon-Leal C, Webber H, Otegui ME, Slafer GA, Ordonez RA, Gaiser T, Lorite IJ, Ruiz-Ramos M & Ewert F 2016, ‘Modelling the impact of heat stress on maize yield formation’, Field Crops Research, 198, 226 – 237.

– Guo Z, Slafer GA & Schnurbusch T 2016, ‘Genotypic variation in spike fertility traits and ovary size as determinants of floret and grain survival rate in wheat’, Journal Of Experimental Botany, 67, 14, 4221 – 4230.

– Kowalski AM, Gooding M, Ferrante A, Slafer GA, Orford S, Gasperini D & Griffiths S 2016, ‘Agronomic assessment of the wheat semi-dwarfing gene Rht8 in contrasting nitrogen treatments and water regimes’, Field Crops Research, 191, 150 – 160.

– Elazab A, Ordonez RA, Savin R, Slafer GA  & Araus JL 2016, ‘Detecting interactive effects of N fertilization and heat stress on maize productivity by remote sensing techniques’, European Journal Of Agronomy, 73, 11 – 24.