Global food systems face mounting pressure from climate change, population growth, and the urgent need to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Transitioning toward more sustainable and resilient food production requires rethinking not only what we grow, but how we grow it. Novel and under-utilized crops — such as grain legumes and perennial grains — offer promising approaches for developing more sustainable and resilient cropping systems, with potential benefits for soil health, biodiversity, and resource efficiency. However, their successful integration into temperate farming systems like those in Denmark depends on a thorough understanding of their agronomic performance, genetic diversity, and adaptability to local environments. At the same time, the broader adoption of these crops is closely tied to their value as nutritious, sustainable plant-based food ingredients that meet consumer expectations and industry standards. Bridging the gap between field performance and food system integration therefore requires a multidisciplinary approach — combining agronomy, plant physiology, advanced phenotyping, data science, food science, and value chain interactions.
We provide knowledge about:
- Adaptation/domestication potential of novel or under-utilized crops in Denmark such as perennial grains (e.g. intermediate wheatgrass) and annual grain legumes (e.g. soybean)
- Novel agronomy and management strategies to enhance the productivity of novel food crops such as dual-purpose cropping, intercropping and microbial inoculant strategies with high resource use efficiency (water and nutrient)
- Interactions between Genetics, Environments and Management (GxExM) for both crop productivity (e.g. yield) and climate resilience (e.g. soil moisture condition).
- Utilization potential of novel crops as sustainable plant-based food (e.g. tofu, bakery and beverage products) in close collaboration with industry partners and food scientists covering product quality and consumer awareness and acceptance
We carry out:
Our research integrates controlled experiments, field trials, living-lab farmer engagement, and food product development. Thus, we work on:
- Experiments in field trials and controlled environments to reveal mechanistic relationships between the novel crops, soil and seasonal conditions.
- Advanced plant phenotyping to identify ideal traits of the novel crops in both above (e.g. UAV) and belowground (e.g. Root imaging) across genotypes, population screening and crop mixture setups (e.g. intercropping)
- Development of prediction models for key plant traits using advanced data-driven approaches (e.g. plant biomass, grain yield) Quantification of ecosystem service potential (e.g. N leaching), soil health (e.g. C sequestration) and climate resilience (e.g. water use efficiency) via integrated sensing and biogeochemical techniques
- Living-lab experiments in which farmers are engaged to monitor the growth and adoption of the novel crops
- Grain quality analysis of novel crops and consumer awareness survey on plant-based food
