Research Assistant Dr. Nihan Şahin (Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture) is successfully involved as a researcher in two projects supported by the European Union’s European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) program: CA22157 – Reproductive Enhancement of CROP resilience to extreme climate (RECROP) and CA21157 – European Network for Innovative Woody Plant Cloning (COPYTREE).

RECROP (Reproductive Enhancement of CROP resilience to extreme climate) is a team of  gronomists, physiologists, geneticists, biologists, bioinformaticians, and Machine Learning researchers from public institutions and private sector that will use holistic approaches to understand the fundamentals of crop sensitivity and design solutions for increasing yield in the age of climate change. The project aims to determine the genetic, molecular, and physiological structure of crop sensitivity, create a roadmap for producing resistant varieties, and provide guidelines for exogenous treatments to sustainably increase resistance and push the limits of genetically inheritable stress tolerance.

Under the RECROP project, Dr. Nihan Şahin is involved in three important working groups:

WG1: Development of tools to analyze stress response and crop tolerance

WG2: Investigation of the role of abiotic stress in reproductive tissues in terms of yield

WG3: Improvement of yield through genetic methods under unfavorable environmental

conditions

COPYTREE (European Network for Innovative Woody Plant Cloning) aims to improve commercial applications of in-vitro culture of woody plants. Key objectives include overcomingresistance in woody plants, improving diagnostic and sanitation tools, scaling up production of elite clones, assessing technology risks, and raising public awareness. It also aims to encourageforesters and landowners to promote multi-clonal forests. To achieve these goals, the projectenvisions creating a European network bringing together researchers from different disciplines,sharing innovations, developing new research strategies, and strengthening communicationwith stakeholders.

Under the COPYTREE project, Dr. Nihan Şahin is involved in two important working groups:

WG1: Recalcitrants

WG4: Technological risk management, public acceptance, legalization, and commercialization