Gustavo A. Slafer

Gustavo A. Slafer

Universitat de Lleida

Life & Medical Sciences

Gustavo Slafer (PhD, University of Melbourne) is ICREA Research Professor at the University of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain), where he is also Associate Professor (Dept. Crop & Forest Sci.) He is also currently (i) Honorary Professor of the School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham, UK; (ii) Editor of particular sections of Crop Science and Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research, (iii) Handling Editor of Food and Energy Security, (iv) Associate Editor of Euphytica; and (v) member of the Editorial or Advisory Boards of Field Crops Research, European Journal of Agronomy and Agricultural and Food Science. Until Dec. 2019 he has co-edited 6 scientific books, by publishers in USA and UK, and published 40 chapters in international books and more than 180 papers in JCR-journals. His h-index at Dec. 2019 was 54 (WoS-CoreCollection; h-idex of 75 in google scholar). He has been invited several times to deliver talks 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

– Perez-Gianmarco TI, Slafer GA & Gonzalez FG  2019, ‘Photoperiod-sensitivity genes shape floret development in wheat’, Journal Of Experimental Botany, 70, 4, 1339 – 1348.

– Savin R, Sadras VO & Slafer GA  2019, ‘Benchmarking nitrogen utilisation efficiency in wheat for Mediterranean and non-Mediterranean European regions’, Field Crops Research, 241, UNSP 107573.

– Garcia AL, Savin R & Slafer GA 2019, ‘Fruiting efficiency differences between cereal species’, Field Crops Research, 231, 68 – 80.

– Ochagavia H, Prieto P, Zikhali M, Griffiths S & Slafer GA 2019, ‘Earliness Per Se by Temperature Interaction on Wheat Development’, Scientific Reports, 9, 2584.


Selected research activities

Invited Talks in International Events

– Crop physiology in relation to breeding grain crops. Invited lecturer at the EUROPE SCIENTISTS MEETING, Corteva-Pioneer. Cremona, Italy. 5-7 February 2019.

– Heat x Nitrogen penalties on yield of cereals. MonoGram 2019. University of Nottingham. UK. 30 April – 2 May 2019.

– Brechas de rendimiento de trigo en ambientes con estrés hídrico: cuantificación y mitigación. Taller “Estrategias para reducir las brechas de rendimiento e incrementar la sostenibilidad de los sistemas de producción de cultivos anuales”. Universidad Austral de Chile. 23-25 septiembre 2019

Editorial activity

Editor (with different denominations, always in charge of the review process and of making a final decision on acceptance/rejection of mss) of Crop Science (USA), Euphytica (Netherlands), Food and Energy Security (UK), Spanish Journal Agricultural Research (Spain) and Scientific Reports (UK)

Member of the Editorial or Advisory Board of Field Crops Research (Netherlands), European Journal of Agronomy (EU), International Journal of Molecular Sciences (Section for ‘Molecular Plant Sciences’; Switzerland) and Agricultural and Food Science (Finland)