Stephanie Watts-Fawkes
@mycoresearch
Researching mycorrhizal fungi for food and nutrition security at Wageningen Uni 🌾 Aussie🇦🇺 living the cycling dream in NL🇳🇱
Vakantie kaas. So Dutch people don’t have to go anywhere without their Gouda!
Who else is excited about the next two editions of #ICOM in Quebec City and then Tokyo?? 🇨🇦🇯🇵
One of my favourite things about #ICOM is catching up with what my friends are working on! I ran between @frewecologist.bsky.social and @camilledelavaux.bsky.social’s talks. It made me realise we spend most our chats talking about grants we‘re writing, and experiments we’re planning - not results!
#ICOM2026 officially kicks off! My 6th ICOM and it’s finally Australia’s turn to host again (it’s been 25 years since ICOM3 in Adelaide!)
Our study published today suggests that mycorrhizal fungi might be contributing to crop plant PFAS accumulation, at least in some species. Durum wheat and barley shoots had higher PFAS concentrations when they were colonised by mycorrhizal fungi. Link: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
I’m in Granada 🇪🇸 this week to attend the Root-Benefit symposium @rootbenefit.bsky.social. What a great community of EU scientists, all working on beneficial microbes to further sustainable agriculture. I’ll be talking tomorrow about #mycorrhiza and #biofortification!
For years we’ve stayed up into the wee hours to watch cycling’s Spring Classics. Today I got to spectate arguably the best one - Ronde van Vlaanderen. We based ourselves in Oudenaarde and saw Pogi win, but van der Poel (pictured) will always be my favourite!
Starting my morning with a webinar by @aligill.bsky.social on water relations in industrial hemp. More SEM images of hairy trichomes please!
I’ve been in Prague this week to attend the @plantspeopleplanet.bsky.social Editorial meeting. Great to finally put faces to names of the fantastic staff in the editorial office who keep this journal running smoothly, and meet some of the other editors. It even snowed for us ❄️
This morning in Leiden, @frantecol.bsky.social opens the National 🇳🇱 Centre for Soil Ecology symposium, telling us about climate-friendly grassland soils.
Thank you so much to the @asps-oz.bsky.social for the 2025 Peter Goldacre medal 🌱 It was a privilege to speak at the annual conference last week on my last 10 years of research into plant-mycorrhiza associations and zinc nutrition.
There have been days in the Netherlands where I just daydreamed about the next time I’d taste a Melbourne coffee. The time is finally here 😍
Photo taken to mark my first lecture at @w-u-r.bsky.social. It was an 8:20am lecture and I was 40 minutes early to it 🙈 the lecture room wasn’t even unlocked until 8:00.
Today it's 120 days since we last saw our "stuff". Supposedly today was the latest date for it arrive to us in the Netherlands. Our stuff is in... *checks tracker*... China. Awesome. And it's going ALL the way around Africa to get to NL?? Taking donations for warm clothing now 🙃
Workplace potluck dinner calls for us to bring a special dish from our home country. Well… Australia has no dishes of its own. So here we go - Vegemite scrolls 😛 I will deliver the verdict in 24 hours’ time.
The International Plant Nutrition Colloquium is in my hometown #Melbourne in 2028! How exciting! 🥳
It’s always so good to see Alex Johnson giving a talk - whether it’s in Adelaide or in Porto! His work on novel micronutrient biofortification strategies in cereals is so exciting, and he’s a great mentor and collaborator ☺️
I made it to #IPNC2025 in Porto! 🇵🇹 24 hours late, and my suitcase didn’t join me… so no poster to put up for tomorrow 🥲 But still happy to talk about #mycorrhiza and grain zinc biofortification, at every possibly opportunity!
Perfect weather for a field walk and talk in the @w-u-r.bsky.social surrounds. Potatoes, sorghum, intercropping, salinity stress, biodiversity, spiral strips(?)… we saw it all.
I’m not sure anything beats a recreational bike ride after dinner, when it’s still warm (31°C) and sunny, kids totally enamoured with riding in the bakfiets (cargo bike). This is why we came here ☺️
The longest journey of our lives, flying 30 hours with a 5-month-old and 3-year-old… but we made it. And there were many welcome gifts from kind friends waiting for us 🇳🇱🧇