Timetable & learning outcomes

The summer school aims to decipher the strategies that have been developed to identify and exploit stress responses and to manage the growing practices that tackle abiotic and biotic stress. Course content will focus on major challenges encountered by the agricultural industry, such as confronting climate change and maintaining both the yield and quality of agro-food productions. A variety of crops will be studied, such as tomatoes, strawberries, grapevines, carrots, leeks, pine and oak trees etc.

Teaching will be based on the flipped classroom principle: participants and speakers will co-design laboratory experiments in response to current queries and demands faced by farmers and customers. Students and professors will then collect the resulting data and determine the most efficient data mining methods to process the results. The analyses and experimental conclusions will be presented at the end of the summer school.

Participants will be familiarised with academic research, thus preparing them for future studies within doctoral schools and also for the workforce. This international experience will allow students to gain a deeper understanding of other cultures, make lifelong friends from a wide variety of backgrounds and benefit from world-renowned academic excellence.

Tentative programme

Week 1: from the laboratory…

The first week will be devoted to exploring the existing links between climate change, agricultural production and biotechnology.
Via practical and group work, students will understand the role of fundamental research when testing innovative solutions for agriculture. The aim is to provide students with a comprehensive toolbox that will allow them to carry out a needs analysis of modern agricultural practices. This is achieved through an overview of the main challenges of French agriculture and the links between fundamental research and biotechnological agricultural solutions.

Topics to be explored:

• Pollen in high ambient temperatures and development consequences (by use of cellular and molecular biology and functional genomics);
• The impact of climate change on the composition of tomato fruit (approaches for the study of central, specialised and redox metabolisms will be considered for this topic);
• Mildew: how to predict and fight this biotic threat (investigation by bioassays of strategies to study plant-pathogen interactions and control pathogen development).

In order to prepare the inverted class, quizzes will be provided to introduce each topic.

Week 2: …to the field!

During the second week, in order to combine theory with the practice and reality of the professional world, specific theme days are organised. The days are based on the agricultural sectors listed below.

Participants will discover the research laboratories and experimental facilities available at the University of Bordeaux, discuss with researchers who are active within chosen themes and visit agricultural and industrial facilities in New Aquitaine to exchange with professionals from each industry.

In addition to the lectures and practical/group work, the two week summer school programme is balanced with many cultural events and excursions (e.g. historical sites of Bordeaux and the Museum of Aquitaine, Montaigne Tower, Roquetaillade Castle, the Dune of Pilat, the town of Saint-Émilion and its vineyards, Luchey-Halde and its wine cellar).

Day 1 (Monday, 07/07)

• Description of the summer school program (Pr. Michel Hernould / Dr. Kentaro Mori)
• Basic presentations of French agriculture and Climate changes (Pr. Valérie Schurdi-Levraud)
• Basic presentations of RedOx status in tomato (Dr. Pierre Pétriacq)
• Visiting INRAE centre and facilities (Bordeaux Metabolome Plateform) – (Dr P Pétriacq/J Valls)
• Visiting the vineyard of Château Luchey-Halde (Pr. Jean-Philippe Fontenelle)
• Student self-presentation (background/motivation/day life and country)

Day 2 (Tuesday, 08/07)

• Visiting the Orchard at INRAE Toulenne (Dr. Marie-Laure Greil)
• Visiting Roquetaillade castle and Bazas town (contact Roquetaillade castle)

Day 3 (Wednesday, 9/07)

• Visiting INRA Pierroton (Erwan Guichoux, Fanny Robledo-Garcia)
• Basic presentations of Tomato heat stress topics - Visit of the INRAE equipment (Pr. Michel Hernould / Dr. Frédéric Delmas)
• Lab work 1 Heat stress in Tomato (Pr. Michel Hernould / Dr. Frédéric Delmas)
• Petanque tournament

Day 4 (Thursday, 10/07)

• Visiting INRAE agro-ecological experimentation farm (Pr. Jean-Philippe Fontenelle)

Day 5 (Friday, 11/07)

• Basic presentation of Mycology and Phytopathology (Dr. Karine Dementhon)
• Basic presentations of Plant improvements to meet the major challenges of responding to stress: examples from New Aquitaine crops (Pr. Valérie Schurdi-Levraud)
• Basic presentation of Cherry culture and production (Dr. José Quero-Garcia)
• Lab work 2 Mycology and Plant Pathology (Dr. Karine Dementhon)
  

Day 6 (Saturday, 12/07)

• Bordeaux city tour and free time

Day 7 (Sunday, 13/07)

• Saint-Emilion visit (tourism office)

Day 8 (Monday, 14/07)

• Preparation Student’s feedback presentation 1 (Dr. Kentaro Mori / Pr. Michel Hernould - group project/homework)
• Visiting Oyster museum
• Visiting the Pilat dune/view of the Pine forest (Dr. Fréderic Delmas/Pr. Michel Hernould)

Day 9 (Tuesday, 15/07)

• Basic presentation of Strawberry culture and production (Dr. Justine Perrotte)
• Visiting Invenio (strawberry selection/IVC lab) at Douville (Dr. Justine Perrotte)

Day 10 (Wednesday, 16/07)

• Visiting Maisadour production centre (Lucie Bua)

Day 11 (Thursday, 17/07)

• Discovery of different soils in Saint-Emilion vineyards (Pr. Cornelis van Leeuwen)
• Visiting a wine producer (to be determined)

Day 12 (Friday, 18/07)

• Preparation Student’s feedback presentation 2 (Dr. Fréderic Delmas/Pr. Michel Hernould -group project/homework)
• Student’s feedback presentation (all teachers including from partner universities)
• Closing event

Expertise upon completion

Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to translate socioeconomic and ecological demands into scientific questions and build a project proposal describing the work-packages, project management and financial support. Students and speakers will collaborate within project teams, thus allowing participants to develop their project management and communication skills.

A certificate of participation will be awarded to students upon completion of the course.

Programme may be subject to change.