I have a broad background in biology of plants. Currently I am focusing on traits and genetics of red clover. Red clover is an important agricultural species which also grows in the wild. Together with grasses it provides high-quality forage for animals. Being a legume it has symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in its roots, and it thus plays a role in nitrogen supply to the agricultural system. Although red clover is a perennial, the longevity of individual plants is limited and therefore one aim of plant breeders is to make cultivars that are more persistent, i.e. survive and produce yield for more than just a couple of years. In our climate the overwintering ability is thought to be central for persistence of red clover. Overwintering ability of plants is a very complex trait, depending both on resistance mechanisms to specific winter stresses and on environmental regulation of growth, and of the resistance mechanisms, during late autumn and early spring. Together with students and collaborators I am trying to

• Identify traits and chromosomal regions that play a role in persistence
• Understand the strategy of winter survival – how is the overwintering ability affected by light and temperature during autumn and early spring, and how does this relate to growth patterns?
• Characterize genetic variation and variation in freezing tolerance in Nordic and other European germplasm
• Identify chromosomal regions that control reproductive development
• Understand how growing together with grasses is different from growing together with other red clover plants – which trait values and alleles increases persistence in each of these situations?