May 2016 - Semper Florens

Internodium
Volume 16 ( 2015- 2016) Issue 4
• Integration Dinner • Excursion to Delphy
• Allumni story: Fertilization agronomist at Yara
Internote
Index
Chairman’s chat
Intergation Dinner
Flora Fluids and Brightbox excursion
Broem!!!
AXI Game night
4
5
6
7
7
Dear readers,
International intervieuw
MSc thesis
BSc thesis
My Crop
Allumni story
Excursion Delphy
Parent Day
Internship
How to grow your own
9-10
13-14
14
15
This period we welcomed a new member to our
committee: Marieke III! Yes, the third Marieke,
that joined the first years plantlets! Do you want
to know more about Marieke, fast go the “my
crop” and read about her familie’s company. Today
Kilian taught her how to work with InDesign, our
favourite program (well, most of the time…). If
you are also interested in joining this committee,
don’t hesitate to contact us at sf.internodium@
wur.nl!
A few weeks ago during a meeting, we decided
that instead of buying fries we would cook a
healthy dinner. However, a few hours before our
meeting of today, we decided to buy fries again.
With homemade salad however, but still fries…
From now on no fake intentions anymore, fries are
a tradition.
17-18
19
20
21-22
22
Picture page
First year’s Intervieuw
WUDjes
Wall of Fame
23
24-25
26
27
A few weeks ago we made a questionnaire to
find out how the Members of Semper florens
(which happen to be our readers as well) rate this
magazine. We want to thank you for responding,
and we are glad that most of you give the
Internodium a pretty good rating! There were
also quite some good suggestions about possible
articles and other things that we will try to
implement in the next edition, which will come out
just before the summer holidays start. Hopefully
we can make the Internodium even better!
Kind regards,
The Redakcie
Agenda
May
June
17 Thesismarkt
3-5 SF-weekend
18 Gala
11 Reünistendag
Colofon
Internodium
Magazine of Semper
Florens, study
association of Plant
Sciences, Plant
Biotechnology &
Organic Agriculture,
Wageningen University
Editors
Jeanine Janssen
(chief editor),
Henriette Verstegen
Karlijn Luiken
Kilian Duijts
Lisanne Smulders
Mark Beelen
Marieke Biewenga
Toon ten Poele
Next edition
30 juni 2016.
Please send in your
contribution before 10
June 2016.
Edition
Volume 16, Issue 4
(April 2016)
Circulation 500
Publication 5x a year
Front Page:
Micha Gracianna Devi
Flowers on a mystery
cactus species
Photo Colofon:
Martijn Olij
Bee on Alium cepa
Chairman’s chat
Spring, it is already that part of the year
and personally my favourite. Days are getting longer, the sun is shining and most importantly, all plants start to flower to create
new life. Semper Florens also needs some
liveliness. A lot of commissions are looking
for new committee members. Besides that
a whole new commission has to be formed:
the Almanakcie. So keep an eye on your
inbox if you are interested in becoming a
more active member of SF and/or you want
to make the next Almanac, and do not hesitate to reply!
Integration dinner
A lot of fun activities are coming up, the
farmer games, the SF-bbq and of course
the SF-weekend. Also the excursion commission and the TDL-cie are working on
some interesting activities. Last but not
least the Integration Gala is coming up! On
the 18th of May it is time to get dressed in
your nicest dress and suit.
What has begun must come to an end. For
the physical plants, this season is the beginning of a new year, but for the plantlets,
it is almost the ending of the current academic year. Reports need to be made, exams must be studied. But there is space for
a new beginning: the summer holidays and
that is truly my favourite part of the year.
The internetcie has given new life to our
website. Since a few weeks the new website has been online. Besides the amazing new look it is from now on possible to
subscribe for activities on the website. So
take a look on the new website and register
yourself to see all the photos, job- and internship openings, WUD-jes and to get the
possibility to subscribe for activities!
Hilde Coolman
“Tak kenal maka tak sayang” are probably
the words which can describe the essence
of our Integration dinner with all of Semper Florens family, which simply means:
“You can’t love what you don’t know”. The
integration dinner which was organized by
the International Committee of Semper
Florens is more like a gathering where we
can meet, greet and know each other as SF
family.
we ever had. Flower power means that we
dressed with flowers as the ornaments or
simply dressed with flower shirt, like I did.
Therefore we can see a very beautiful view
under the yellow light of Ceres (the venue
of Integration dinner) because all of the
guests dressed with flowers. Don’t worry, it
were only fake flowers. We won’t kill the
plants only to have their flower as our ornaments to attend a dinner. We love plants
because we’re plantlets.
The dinner, which also had Anja Kuipers
as a guest, ran so smooth, started from
welcoming students at the door where the
International Committee (Louise, Wendy
and myself) gave the colourful ribbon as
the bracelet for all guests which actually
used to divide the guests into teams based
on the colour they had. Then we continued
to the dinner with the menu: Tomato soup
as appetizers, Chicken with potatoes plus
broccoli as main dish and Tiramisu cake as
dessert. Then in between time of main dish
and desserts there was a pub-quiz, and in
the end of this fab event we danced together with note: we’re really wet in the end of
Integration dinner.
Music performance is something that missed
in our Integration dinner. With music performance, I believe the event will be tremendously awesome. The guests can feel the
beat and also the taste of the foods. While
music’s playing, the guests will have a topic
to talk about with the people around and
the dinner will become so crowd even it
wasn’t, but at least the guests can unite
with the situation and condition of our integration dinner. I believe it will work better
to integrate our hearts as a whole SF family.
Music, Flower Power, Dance, foods, what
else than this could make us happier and
unite?
Flower power as the dress code of the
event, could be one of the triggers why the
dinner was different than usual dinners
4
Balie Nasution
5
Broem!!!
Flora fluids and Brightbox
Tuesday the 5th of April Semper Florens
went out on an excursion. The university’s
loyal bus picked us up around lunch and
set course for the lovely hills of Limburg.
An hour later we arrived in Venlo at Flora
Fluids. We got a presentation about the
company’s goals and achievements. Flora
Fluids is a startup company that specializes
in a new technique that they call “plant
milking.” It is the extraction of plant fluids
by using electric currents. Just like during
a thunderstorm, plants release fluids under
the influence of electricity. The company
mostly uses this technique on Taxol trees,
because of their high priced fluids that can
be developed for cancer medicine.
After the tour and presentation, we got on
the bus again and went towards the Blue
Innovation Centre. There we got a tour from
a very friendly man that leads the projects
of Brightbox. Brightbox is located on the
Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo. The
Floriade of 2012 was also located here in
the same building.
Brightbox is a company that specializes in
city farming. The man from Brightbox gave
us a presentation earlier that day of the
project. After a quick walk in the building,
the group stepped into a large room full
of light. 4 rows of lettuce plants floating
on water, 5 stories high. Above the lettuce
plants the new LED lights of Phillips shined
in the room. Red and blue LEDs that made
the room look a bit purple. An intense and
pleasant smell of vegetables filled the warm
air.
After a short talk and a Q&A in the city
farming room, we returned to the bus. After
about an hour we arrived back on the campus with new insights on the cultivation and
usage of plants.
Sem van Hoften
“The Lion”
I’m going to tell you about one of our oldest and most well-known tractors, named
“The Lion”. In Dutch this is ’De Leeuw’. It is
nicknamed The Lion because of the roaring
sound it makes when it is accelerating. It
is a Ford 7610 generation 2 from the year
1984, making it one of our oldest tractors
(and probably older than most of the people
reading this magazine, imagine!). It is one
of the reasons why I like it so much. In the
past we used it for all kinds of activities.
Back then my father usually drove The Lion,
and when I was a little girl I was allowed to
drive along with him and sit on top of the
built-in tool box feeling pretty badass.
Currently it is mostly used during the harvest of wheat, where I usually help out on
the farm. In the summer we will produce
and collect small bundles of straw. The Lion
is used to pick up the bundles and place
them on the wagons.
The only problem with the Lion is that the
suspension is old and malfunctioning. So
if one drives too fast, they’ll probably hit
their head against the roof. Sometimes we
must learn the hard way! But don’t worry,
The Lion usually behaves like a sweet kitty.
See you around!
Lea Priem
AXI game night
The AXI organized a very enjoyable activity: a spaghetti smuggling game. This was
the perfect activity to fill a lazy Wednesday evening. This was probably the reason
why there were many attendants (more
than half of the group was a member of
"Nûrtklup", a group first years plantlets
that do games and have dinner together
every Wednesday). All the participants met
at the bus stop next to the water tower to
go uphill in Wageningen and into the forest
together. This "spaghettigame" was played
with two teams. The first started at one
side of the forest, the other one block further. The goal of this game was for the first
team to transfer the spaghetti in whole to
the other side, without being stopped by
the second team.
6
7
Sneaky plans were made and it was attempted to hide in bushes AND to hide the
spaghetti itself, in ponytails and shoes (but
that didn't turn out to be very effective…).
After the first round, roles were switched.
Now all the people knew the forest better,
but also it became dark during the second
round. Everyone did a good job. Every
whole spaghetti strand that was brought to
the other side was rewarded with a drink.
Unfortunately this glorious game isn't
captured in any pictures, because the only
camera we had that evening was without
flash...
Henriette Verstegen
Werken aan de
landbouw van morgen
De wereld staat voor grote
uitdagingen op het gebied
van voedselvoorziening
en voedselzekerheid. Als
onderdeel van de mondiale
Groupe Limagrain leveren
wij daaraan een grote bijdrage door de ontwikkeling
van hoogwaardig uitgangsmateriaal voor belangrijke
landbouwgewassen als
granen en maïs.
Met nieuwe plantenrassen dragen we innovatieve gewasoplossingen
aan voor de landbouw van
morgen. Duurzame,
gezonde rassen die
meer opbrengen en nóg beter van kwaliteit zijn én met
minder mineralen en
gewasbescherming
toekunnen.
Dat is onze missie!
Ki j k v oo r m ee r i n f o r m a t i e o v er
8
ons w e r k o p ww w. l i m agr a i n. n l
International interview
Name: Erwin Fajar
Country: Indonesia
Study programme: Master in Plant sciences,
Plant breeding.
Could you tell something about your home
town?
I was born and raised in a town near Jakarta
and I went to school in Jakarta as well. Like
the rest of Indonesia, I grew up in a tropical
climate and the weather is always nice! Indonesia has beautiful nature and is very rich
in different species. Jakarta is a very big city
with 25 million inhabitants. This means that
there is a lot of traffic and many skyscrapers.
Something which is not very nice in my hometown is the large gap between the poor and the
rich. And being poor in Indonesia is on a very
different level compared to being poor in the
Netherlands: many poor people have to struggle really hard only to get something to eat
every day.
What did you do before studying this MSc
study in Wageningen?
I did a Bachelor study in Agronomy back in
Indonesia, which was very nice since we had a
lot of field trips! I saw many farmers in rural
areas of Indonesia and their daily activities,
their traditional farming techniques and their
daily social life.
Why did you choose for Wageningen University?
Because I heard Wageningen is the best university for agriculture. I really wanted to study
here because I figured out I could really learn a
lot about producing enough food for Indonesia
or even for the world population, and espe-
cially how to make a standard daily amount of
food achievable even for the poorest people in
the world.
I come from a poor family, even for an Indonesian economic standard. Hunger was a regular
part of my childhood. I also saw how not being
able to get a daily minimum food amount is a
serious problem in my childhood environment.
Several friends (and their whole family) did
not have anything to eat for tomorrow and
the only thing I could do was closing my eyes
and ears, pretending I did not notice, because
my family was also in a poor situation. I saw
how my peer children had to be working hard
to help his family buying 1 kg rice. Also how
my friend had to stop school from elementary
school and gave up of his dream to be a doctor,
because he had to work in order to get something to eat for his family. That is how a child
had to become a criminal, because he desperately needed some food to eat.
Hunger is a serious problem in some regions
of my home country and I want to do something about it. My personal ambition is that at
least in about 50 years from now, no one in my
country will be suffering from hunger anymore,
while we also live in balance with nature and
protect our wildlife and forests. The long term
motivation for my study at the WUR is to try all
I can so there will be
enough food for humans, but for other species as well! In the future, I genuinely feel it
will not be enough to produce food for only
9 billion people in the future. I believe we as
a dominant species on this planet have a full
responsibility to make sure there will also be
enough food (the quality and quantity) for
International interview
other species on this planet as well.
How long will you study here and what are
you planning to do after graduation?
I will study here for two years and I should be
finished this September. I will focus my time in
designing comprehensive food production systems, which are ecologically friendly and highly
productive. I am planning to join an agricultural
research institution after I finish my study at
WUR.
Do you find differences between your old university and Wageningen University?
My old university was much smaller and we
mainly worked on local problems without focussing on the far future. I feel like Wageningen
University research is more focused on the
further future and on many different countries.
I am encouraged to see a situation (or a problem) from a world-wide perspective while in my
previous universities this was more like from
local perspective.
Are there things in the Netherlands you really
need to get used to?
The food and the climate! Besides this the culture has many differences as well. For example,
in Indonesia it is frowned upon if you do not
agree with your teacher/project supervisor or
go into discussion with them, while here you are
really encouraged to develop your own opinion
and ideas.
What are your hobbies?
Reading, Internet surfing,
philosophy, travelling.
What plant do you dislike the most?
Parasitic plants.
Vleetweg 12 | 1619 PR Andijk
T.: +31 228 515 280
F.: +31 228 520 831
E.: [email protected]
www.abz-strawberry.nl
What do you think about Semper Florens?
I believe the world agricultural problems will
become more complex in the future. To solve
it, we need to collaborate together nicely on a
local and international scale. Students in Plant
Sciences Group (PSG) come from all over the
world. I think for organisations like SF, it is essential to promote all the students (Dutch and
international students) to collaborate and work
together so we can solve the complicated problems of the future.
What have you done in Wageningen that you
didn’t do or cannot do in your home country?
Playing in the snow: I never saw snow before,
so that was a new experience for me. I also enjoyed looking at tulips, since they are not common in Indonesia. Here I can also talk to many
different people from all over the world and
have a good discussion with them about how to
improve the future together and what our vision
is on our branch of science.
Which question would you like to ask the next
international that will be interviewed?
How can we, in the future, make this planet
more friendly for all the species living on it? And
how to make sure that in the future we can feed
the world (homo sapiens and other species) appropriately without doing something harmful to
our beloved mother-earth?
Holland Strawberry House
Welcom
e to
the ama
zing
world o
f
strawbe
rries!
What do you like about
plants?
How they are the oldest “machines” and can use chemical
elements around them and
synthesize new compounds by
using solar energy. They can
create complex compounds
from simple elements and
provide life on this planet.
Plants played a start-up role
in making earth from common
and boring to become a lovely
and dynamic planet as earth
is at this moment.
HOLLAND STRAWBERRY HOUSE
Msc Thesis
Hi everyone,
Magic? No, just
micronutrients
healthy crops for healthy profits
AkzoNobel is global market leader in the
production and marketing of high quality
chelated micronutrients. Whether applied in
greenhouse hydroponics, foliar feeding, or
full-field fertigation; our micronutrients result
in healthy crops and higher yields.
We are looking for students
To help drive our continual innovation we are
looking for students to perform plant nutrition or soil chemistry related experiments
(this could be in the form of an internship,
BSc thesis, MSc thesis, or another academic project).
Are you an enthusiastic, driven student with
an interest in plant nutrition? Please contact
Marcel Bugter (Marcel.Bugter@akzonobel.
com) or Levi Bin ([email protected])
www.akzonobel.com/micronutrients
We are Bart Terra and Leon Haanstra. Bart
started with his bachelor in Wageningen.
Leon started with his master in Wageningen
after finishing his bachelor at CAH Dronten.
We are both MSc Plant Science students
with the specialization Crop Science. In our
free time, we both work on arable farms
and gained a lot of practical knowledge
about agriculture.
In our study, Plant Sciences, we learned
about the theory and academic competences. The topic of this study, biomass production by cover crop mixtures, fits very well
with our personal interest for sustainable
agriculture and experimental fieldwork. Together we worked on a MSc thesis project,
as we thought 1 + 1 = 2! Up to the moment
of writing the report we worked closely
together. After finishing the common part,
we both wrote our own report.
This MSc thesis was carried out at the Crop
System Analysis group. We were supervised
by Lammert Bastiaans and Aad van Ast. The
study contained an experiment with different cover crop species and was carried out
last summer and autumn at Unifarm, the
experimental farm of Wageningen UR.
Organic matter in the soil supports key
functions for plant production and agricultural ecosystem performance such as
greater crop production at lower external
inputs, carbon sequestration and reduction
in nutrient leaching. Using cover crops is a
pathway for building organic matter in soil.
This is an explorative study for the recently
approved NWO-Groen project ‘Clever Cover
Cropping’, which started this year. Since
recently, EU farmers are stimulated to grow
cover crops in mixtures of at least two
plant species. The title of our MSc thesis
is ‘’Effect of late summer sown cover crop
mixtures on aboveground dry matter production in dependence of sowing time’’.
Cleverly chosen species mixtures can support greater inputs into the soil C reservoir,
driving increases in soil N and P and crop
nutrient use efficiency. However, knowledge
is lacking on how to design cover crop mixtures serving multiple management targets.
To choose the cover crop species for our
experiment, we visited the stakeholder
companies in Limburg (Joordens zaden),
Groningen (Vandinter Semo) and Germany
(P.H. Petersen). Unfortunately, we were so
Msc Thesis
My Crop
close to Denmark that we had to make a
toer-de-boer (visiting farmers) in Denmark.
Eventually, we chose for one species out of
the families Poaceae, Fabaceae and Brassicaceae. The species we chose were Bristle
oat (A. Strigosa), Common vetch (V. sativa)
and Oilseed radish (R. sativus). In total the
experiment contained eight species compositions, sown at three specific sowing times.
The sowing was done by an Unifarm employee and Bart was operating the sowing
machine behind the tractor.
also wanted to measure the belowground
biomass, unfortunately this was not possible
in this field experiment. In total we did five
destructive harvests, with three weeks in
between. These measurements took much
time and sometimes ‘’we couldn’t see the
tree’s through the forest…’’. Luckily, the
staff of Unifarm helped us out. After a week
of harvest and other measurement, ‘’we
were laying at monkey yawning’’.
We mainly focused on aboveground dry matter production. In addition, we measured
emergence, leaf area and groundcover. We
We had a lot of fun during the fieldwork.
However, we knew ‘’there was an adder under the grass’’ coming up: at the moment,
we are both writing our thesis report and
hope to finish soon!
BScThesis
Arabidopsis, Zinc and Phenotyping
Hereby I would like to introduce you to my
Bsc project. For my thesis I have three key
words: Arabidopsis, zinc and phenotyping.
I have some mutant Arabidopsis to work
with and I’m going to find out how well they
stand zinc deficiency. It is not yet clear how
zinc uptake is regulated in plants, but we do
know that several genes are involved in this
process. By doing this work, I’ll try to obtain
a better understanding of how zinc uptake is
regulated with respect to these genes.
Why zinc?
Well, why not? Perhaps you didn’t know, but
zinc is essential for us! When you eat a burger, you’ll get plenty of zinc. Unfortunately,
most people don’t have enough money to
buy burgers. Instead, their diet consists of
rice, grains or maize and those are not that
rich in zinc. The problems that occur in such
cases? Poor growth in children, impaired
brain development, susceptibility to infections and even death. With a better understanding of the regulation of zinc in plants,
breeders could implement this knowledge
14
into new varieties of staple crops. Improing these crops could help dealing with zinc
deficiency in humans.
My day
There are a lot of different things to do,
such as preparing grow-media for my plants,
sowing seeds, performing a gene expression
analysis or analysing the phenotype of different mutants. There is actually only one
thing fixed for the day and that is the daily
coffee break at noon. ;D Overall, I have a
real nice place with varied work to do!
Marijn van Doorn
Hello everybody,
My name is Marieke and I am in the first
year of the Plant Science Bachelor. My family has a potato farm in the north of Groningen.
Our current farm was built in 1928 by my
great-grandfather. At first it was a mixed
farm, with cows and potatoes, but my
grandfather stopped with the cows in 1971.
A few years ago my father built a new
barn, which consists of a cooled storage for
the potatoes and a storage for the machinery. In the old barn we have a sorting machine for the potatoes, a bagging machine
and a lot of space for storing potatoes.
There is also still an old worker’s house in
the barn. We are planning on building two
little windmills, so we can cover the energy
need of the farm.
My grandfather and father have grown a
lot of different crops over the years, but
at this moment we grow 23 ha of seed
potatoes, 4.50 ha of corn, 27 ha of winter
wheat and 6 ha of sugar beets.
During winter, we mostly sort the potatoes,
put them in burlap sacks or crates and
transport them. Our seed potatoes go to
a lot of different countries like Morocco,
Italy and Cuba.
15
At the end of March and during April, we
sow the sugar beets and plant the potatoes. When all the potatoes are planted,
we sow the corn. At the same time as
we plant the corn, we plant potatoes in
between them. These potatoes are the
catching crop. In this way the potato cyst
nematodes are lured and after 40 days,
when they have formed cysts, the potatoes
are sprayed dead, the cysts will also die
this way. In the meantime, the other crops
need to be sprayed with pesticides. Also
the potatoes need to be selected, potatoes
infected with viruses and bacteria are taken away from the field. When the potatoes
are fully grown they will be sprayed dead.
During July/August, the winter wheat can
be harvested and during August/September
the potatoes. This takes a few weeks. The
corn is harvested by the dairy farmer who
buys it. The harvesting time of the sugar
beets depends partly on when they get
picked up by the sugar company. The field
can then be ploughed for the next year and
we sow the winter wheat.
Marieke Biewenga
Alumni story
Agrojobs bemiddelt in banen voor zowel starters als werkervaren kandidaten. Ook als je nog studeert, kan Agrojobs je helpen bij je loopbaanoriëntatie. Schrijf je in via de website voor een vrijblijvend gesprek of een jobscan.
Op dit moment zijn wij onder andere op zoek naar kandidaten voor de
volgende vacatures:
Researcher Genetis bij een vooraanstaand veredelingsbedrijf
Contact: Karin van der Drift - 06 53290167
Commerciële Trainee - gericht op teelt
Contact: Sander Moret - 06 46057478
Junior Productmanager / Marketingmanager Verdeling
Contact: Sander Moret - 06 46057478
Medewerker Verkoopondersteuning - doorgroeimogelijkheden naar Teeltspecialist Contact: Marjon Beers - 06 - 51265893
De juiste man op de juiste plek? Of de perfecte vrouw in de perfecte functie?
I am Jasper van der Pijl and I have
graduated Plant sciences in December
2012. My student time has been a very
nice and joyful period in which I have
met a lot of new people and got a lots
of new experiences. I have had a very
good time at Semper Florens and I do
still regularly speak a lot of friends
from this period. Live moves on and so
after this very good time in Wageningen
I am happy that learning and development continued in practice during the
“burgerlijk” life.
During my studies I have enjoyed the
different directions of plant sciences,
particularly horticulture, crop sciences
and plant breeding. Thus it has been
clear that plant sciences was a study
which fit very well to my interest. As I
came near to graduation, I have started
to search for vacant positions and as
the breeding industry is looking for a
lot of employees, I searched for some
vacant positions at these companies.
However, in this process I realized I
enjoyed soil sciences as well and for
this reason I did search for open positions at fertilizer companies. Finally I
have started as fertigation agronomist
at Yara International a bit more than 3
years ago.
Yara is a Norwegian company and one
of the main producers of mineral fertilizers worldwide, with sales in over
150 countries. In the Netherlands we
do have two production facilities in
Vlaardingen and Sluiskil. Sluiskil is a
big production location of field grade
fertilizers used in e.g. arable cropping.
Vlaardingen is the small location where
we produce the liquid fertilizers we
sell in the Dutch horticulture sector, as
well where we produce products which
contain complete nutrition for the fertigation market. Fertigation is a specific
and technical market, were fertilizers
(ferti) will be applied dissolved in the
irrigation water (gation).
As I am working in the product management team of the water soluble fertilizer, me and my colleagues are always
in close contact to our agronomist and
sales teams in the market. Recently
I have started as business development manager for the chelated micro
nutrients in addition to my position
as fertigation agronomist. Due to the
overview and our focus on fertigation
and our product portfolio, as fertigation agronomist, we do train, guide and
steer our representatives, agronomist
and customers in the market about
which products are recommended to be
used and on which products should be
focused. By the end this all depends on
the crop and growers we target. >>>
Professionals bij elkaar brengen, dat is wat wij doen.
Natuurlijk ervaren in Agribusiness, Tuinbouw en Food
16Dronten - Delft - Den Bosch - Leeuwarden - Wageningen
17
Excursion Delphy
Alumni
>>> As it is an International position, I
have to travel frequently to different
markets, as well the international colleagues are visiting our site in Vlaardingen. It is a very nice opportunity to
meet and experience different people
and cultures.
As I am coming to many countries and
I am in contact with different people
from different countries, I am also involved to exchange best practice experiences between countries. Due to increasing water scarcity and increase of
acreage of high value crops worldwide,
fertigation is a growing and developing
market globally. For this reason I have
been involved in crops ranging from
maize to high tech greenhouse crops
and from potato to all kind of fruit
trees. For example, I have been travelling to the Indian Himalayas to train apple growers, to the nursery plantations
of the Indonesian paper industry and the
fruit and vegetable growers in Georgia
and Azerbaijan. As the industry is so
diverse, the one moment we are talking
about very advanced growers and fully
automated systems, while next time
a place is visited where a very basic
system is used which is prepared by the
material locally available.
This diversity, in crops, technics, cultures and customers is what I like in
the job. It is very nice to meet a lot
of different people and I like the mix
between commercial and technical
activities. It is nice to visit growers and
colleagues and to have the opportunity
to help and train them to improve their
knowledge and practices in fertigation.
As fertigation is a technical approach
of applying fertilizer, the learned background in Wageningen is very useful
to support, guide and steer the different markets on the current and future
focus. This job has been a nice opportunity to develop my knowledge and
experience on plant nutrition
Jasper van der Pijl
As usual Semper Florens officials in charge
of international excursions organized and
announced this opportunity via webmail
to take place on Tuesday 1st March 2016.
Honestly it was an unforgettable and historic excursion for both of us, among international students as it was our first time
to participate in a SF excursion. We were
very curious and optimistic as we board the
bus in front of the Radix building ready for
the trip. Funny enough we found ourselves
discussing about the excursion throughout
the journey. On arrival at Delphy, which is
a new name of DLV Plant and GreenQ, our
hosts welcomed us warmly by showing us
the coffee machine to ease the cold since
we visited is used to develop and demonstrate new growing concepts and technical
installations. The other part of Improvement Centre is called Horti Experience Centre special for training facility for students,
trainees and newly hired staff. After the
presentation we had an opportunity to enter the complex greenhouses by first wearing transparent plastic suits, netted hats
and hand gloves as protective devices.
it was winter time with raindrops outside.
After a cup of coffee we were given a short,
but precise presentation about all services
rendered by Delphy, its focus and scope.
colours dominated with red and blue colours as regards our naked eyes vision capacity. This was a proof of what we learnt in
class that crops normally require red and
blue lights, but the intensity depends on
the stage of production and the targeted
organs. We also visited greenhouses under research on other crops such as sweet
pepper, cucumber and roses. After visiting
all greenhouses we had a short closure talk
accompanied with a soda drink. Thereafter
we departed for a trip back to the University with everyone showing a smiling face
as a sign of satisfaction. Thanks to Delphy,
Wageningen UR, SF and others who enabled
this excursion. Indeed, it was a marvelous
and memorable experience!!
It was made clear to us that Delphy is the
largest global commercial service provider
in the field of horticultural crops cultivation
and production in greenhouse and field.
They provide services in consultancy, research (on-site or at their own greenhouse
complex), trainings and turnkey projects in
cultivation. Moreover, they also have international projects that are mainly focused
on supporting growers and farmers in the
process of constructing new horticultural
projects. They do that by providing active
support in finding funding and subsidies for
projects.
On the other hand, their Improvement Centre (modern greenhouse complex) which
18
We visited more than ten greenhouses with
different sizes and functions depending on
the research on progress and type of crops
grown. For instance, we saw long tomatoes
crops under artificial lights with different
Adefemi James Orodeji (MSc Plant Science)
Raya Joseph Amara Nundu (MSc Plant Science)
19
Internship
Parent day
Already more than a month ago the Parent
Day was organized for the parents of the first
years bachelor students. This day was all
about letting the parents of our students see
how wonderful our bachelor Plant Sciences
is. This meant that our committee members
had to work non-stop from 8 am till 5 pm,
which was not always easy. But in the end we
were proud of our accomplishment, which is
why I am going to tell you a bit about this
day.
The committee started early to prepare the
sandwiches for lunchtime. This was of course
not the most fun part of the day as all of us
were in need of some long napping. But later
this day we also got some compliments for
the sandwiches, which made it worth it.
Then at 10.15 the first parents came and
got some well-deserved coffee or tea after
a couple of minutes. The committee leaded
the parents to the lecture room, where the
parents got a nice talk by the parent day
committee, the board of Semper Florens
and by study advisor Jet Vervoort. After this
the parents were of course thrilled to get to
know more about plants and their surroundings. Therefore Ronald van den Berg gave a
nice lecture about Biosystematics of plants.
Tijs Ketelaar, on the other hand, brought
more practice for the parents. I think every
parent liked this because it was an easy, but
interesting practical.
But after the lecture and practical all the
tummy’s of the parents were already empty and had to be filled with the sandwiches
that the committee made. And if the parents
didn’t have enough sandwiches to eat, they
20
still could eat enough “krentenbollen” (bread
with raisins) as the committee bought 300 of
them by accident.
When everyone was full of energy again, the
committee split the group in three subgroups.
These groups were given a little tour through
the greenhouse of Unifarm. The tours were
given by Janhenk Boekeloo, Joost Houdijk
and Nynke Tack, whom all gave a nice impression of the greenhouse. In the greenhouse also Lisanne Smulders and Joram van
Boven gave a presentation about their Master
theses. Bert Rijk gave a small tour through
the tropical greenhouse and made the parents enthusiastic for the next lecture.
For this lecture the group went again to Forum, where the lecture of Bert Rijk about
soybean cultivation was given. This lecture
was very different from the first lecture, as
this gave information on cropping systems
and horticulture. A couple of parents were
very interested and this resulted in a nice
discussion.
Thereafter, the discussion could be extended
with some drinks and snacks at the Grand
Café. However, this also meant that some
people could relax and eat for a bit after an
intensive day. The committee and the board
of Semper Florens were waving everybody
goodbye and gave some nice krentenbollen
for the people that were interested. At the
end we, as the parent day committee, could
look back at a very successful parent day!
Dieke Kortekaas
Internship Annemarieke Borst
Two days after successfully finishing my
master thesis, I took the plane to Brazil to
start with the final part of my student life:
the internship. At the Instituto Biológico in
Campinas I could join the group of Professor Marcello Dornelas to do research on the
tendril development in passion flower. The
tendril helps the plant to climb on other
plants and reach higher light. In the dense
tropical forests this gives a big advantage
to the plant. There are more plants which
uses such organs to climb on other plants,
like pea and grape vine. There are different
evolutionary origins of the tendril: in pea
the tendril is a modified leaf and in grape
it is thought to be a modified flower. For
Passiflora there is more and more evidence
that the tendril is a modified floral structure. For me there was the task to find out
if there is a link in the meristem from which
a flower grows and the meristem from
which the tendril grows. In the leaf axil
of Passiflora edulis there is the vegetative
bud, the floral meristem and a tendril. In an
early stage you can observe the meristem
and primordia formation in the apex of the
plant. There was a clear separation visible,
the vegetative bud primordia develops separately, the tendril and floral primordium
share a group of cells for the first around 10
days after which from
this group one primordium for the tendril
and on the other side the floral bud develops. I learned to do in situ hybridizations
to find out if the group of cells from which
both tendril and floral bud are derived have
two concentrated meristematic cell points,
one for the tendril and one for the flower,
or if the cells have one big group of meristematic cells making both a tendril and
flower.
Doing in situ hybridizations must be one of
the most difficult techniques I have learned.
There are many components in this technique and every step you take, increases the
chance on failure! But it is also a very beautiful technique, with in situ you can locate
specific gene expression in sections of your
plant material. It starts with embedding the
plant material in paraffin blocks and making sections of them. This part took most
of my time and also most of my failures.
Meanwhile the probe needs to be made, the
labelled probe will dye your gene on local
expression sides in your material. When you
have enough sections and your probe ready
the in situ can start. I have been very busy
with all the preparations, redoing things,
finding out what went wrong and trying all
over again. Finally one in situ hybridization
worked (slightly), but the section was not
clear enough to make conclusions about
what I wanted to find out. >>>
21
Internship
>>> It was a very interesting experience
to work in another lab than I was used to
in Wageningen. I had to improvise sometimes, but I really enjoyed working in
Brazil. Marcello took me and Diego (postdoc in the lab) to a native Brazilian forest
for a weekend to find wild Passiflora
material. This was a wonderful weekend
in an extremely beautiful place, I was
very impressed by the huge biodiversity
and stunning plants. Luckily, Marcelo and
Diego could tell me a lot about all those
plants and we found about 8 different
wild Passiflora plants.
Besides doing research I really enjoyed
being in Brazil, I lived in a huge house
with only Brazilian house mates and a
pool, many barbeques and parties! We
made little trips in the weekends or
holidays. My family visited me, with them
I went to a cacao farm in the tropical
rainforest, which was amazing. I could
tell many things about it, but the words
are counting ! I would really suggest the
institute where I did my internship. If you
want to know more, don’t hesitate to ask
me about my experience!
How to grow your own
How to train grow your own Dragon fruit
Around this time of year you will occasionally see them shining bright pink in the
supermarkets or vegetable stalls at the
market: Pitahaya or Dragon fruits. These
fruits taste somewhat like kiwi or melon
and grow on cacti. Originally from Mexico,
they now grow all over the world, from
China to Cyprus and on my windowsill. (And
maybe yours too soon).
The white flesh on the inside of the fruit
is packed with little black seeds that are
very happy to grow. Just cut a dragon fruit
in half and scoop out some of the seeds.
Put them shallowly in moist soil and keep
warm. In about two to three weeks you will
see two cotyledons emerge from the soil
and flatten out.
22
A little later a small spiked cactus starts
growing from the center.
Dragon fruits need some structure to grow
on for support. About a year ago, I build a
small climbing frame for mine from skewers. As you can see, it has grown quite a bit
since and I will have to think about something new soon.
It is a very forgiving cactus though, it
doesn’t mind if you forget to water it a
couple of weeks, in fact that’s a good
thing. After three or four weeks without
water you will see it starting to droop a bit
and lean more on its supporting structure
than usual. Just water them a bit; they will
recover in no-time.
I hope you will give them a try!
Kilian
23
Plantlet interview
What’s your name and how old are
you?
My name is Job Cohen and I’m 18 years
old.
My name is Casper Krijnse Locker and I
am 19 years old.
What are your hobbies?
C: Chilling with friends with a beer or
two
J: I love travelling! Last summer I backpacked in Thailand, I just came back
from Cape Town and I’m planning to go
to Sri Lanka next summer (my mum is
flight attendant, so the air tickets are
pretty cheap). I also like to do sports,
randomly hit the trail, party and meet
friends.
Where are you from?
J: I come from the most beautiful city
in this country: Zwolle :).
C: I am from Velp, which is a little town
near Arnhem.
Why did you choose to study Plant Sciences?
J: Before I decided to study plant sciences, I had done the selections for
the Dutch air force. This was my first
choice, but I finally didn’t pass them.
Then, I wanted to study Biology, but
after I had visited the open day of Plant
Sciences and I had done my PWS about
the purple tomato, I decided to do this
study.
C: I chose Plant Science because I am
interested in the possibilities of plants
to increase quality of life.
Do you miss high school and/or do you
prefer university life?
J: High school was a good time, but I
certainly prefer university and everything else that this life has to offer now
:)
C: I prefer university life over high
school life because you have more freedom here.
Describe yourself in 3 words.
J: Ondernemend, reislustig, duidelijk
(sorry I do this in Dutch, in English it’s
something like enterprising, love for
travelling, clear to understand).
C: Keen, relaxed and curious.
Plantlet interview
What is favourite kind of music or
song?
C: Sultans of swing - dire straits
J: I like singers like Passenger and Matt
Simons, but I also listen classical music.
Where do we have the biggest chance
to find you?
C: SSR-W.
J: I can actually be anywhere. Just
don’t look for me ;)
Where do you live? And do you like it
there?
C: I live on Rijnveste and I have an
amazing house with nice roommates.
J: Asserpark; it’s okay, but I would like
to move to another room (for myself or
with less people).
Did you bring any plants with you to
Wageningen?
C: I brought some tomatoes.
J: I only brought a common houseplant
and an orchid, but I’m currently growing a lot of ‘Albert Heijn moestuintjes’
on my balcony, that is actually meant to
be an escape route...
24
What do you think of Semper Florens?
C: A fun group of people.
J: I’m not really involved in the association, so I can’t really say something
about that...
Lab coat, suit or overall?
C: Lab coat with a tie
J: Lab coat.
What would be your dream job?
C: I really do not have a clue.
J: I’m still not 100% sure of that, but
I think I won’t end up in the world of
plants.
I would still like to be a pilot (which is
kind of impossible, because it’s too expensive) or otherwise flight attendant,
so I can travel the world. On the other
hand I also dream about becoming a
wildlife guide in Africa. Another option
would be a full time backpacker!
Question of others plantlets: What
plant would you really not like to hug?
J: A cactus of course! But especially the
ones with the small spikes that are very
hard to remove from your skin.
C: I don’t know.
What question should I ask the next
two that will be interviewed?
J+C: Genomics or Plant Production?
What plant would you like to be?
C: A nice big oak tree lonely in a big
field.J: Tough question.
Beer, wine or whisky?
C: BEER!
J: Wine, because I love it. Beer, because
I need it.
Pick two: Social life, good grades or
enough sleep.
C: Social life and good grades
J: Social life and good grades.
25
Wudjes
Wall of Fame
MSc
Wist u dat ....
-
het vorige Internodium twee weken te laat kwam, omdat de commissie moeite had
met klaarkomen?
je van Hanna’s haar een snor kunt maken?
je van Hanna’s baard een snor kunt maken?
een jumbo (spreek uit als gumbo) de benaming is van een oude kauwgom onder
een tafel of stoel?
Hilde een mooie tong heeft?
Anja versierd is door Brent?
wanneer u Kyra niet kunt bereiken? ACT
wanneer u niets gehoord heeft van de secretaris? ACT
Kyra d’r mailtje niet beantwoordt? ACT
wanneer u Kyra kwijt bent? ACT
wanneer u een zombie in Radix ziet? ACT
Jet helemaal weg is van het kleffe gevoel dat je krijgt van roze koeken?
Louise niet past tussen Laura’s benen?
een lepel geen vork is?
Dieke best wel vaak denkt?
Laura niet weet hoe ze voor advies moet betalen?
Brent z’n dansframe niet zo lang stevig kan houden en dat de dames er dus goedge
bruik van moeten maken anders wappert het er maar een beetje bij?
Sander op drie vrouwen tegelijk springt?
Brent z’n broek open doet tijdens het bussen?
Sander het licht gezien heeft?
Anja dacht dat Louise wel 100 mensen kon trekken?
Dit tegenviel, het waren er slechts 80?
Brent intelligent is en daarom door Thom “Intillibrent” wordt genoemd?
Brent wel begrijpt dat het haar van Jorrit erg erodynamisch is, maar hij het niet
echt erotisch vindt?
Joris zo fanatiek met het sparen van voetbalplaatjes is dat het misschien tijd wordt
voor een pedo-pas?
Laura soms erg nat wordt?
Sander moeite heeft met vrouwen en mannen van elkaar te onderscheiden?
Ruben bestoven is door Louise?
Hanna op Tims pinda sabbelt?
Conner Pelgrim
Xandra Schrama
IK
Jarno Rietema
Richard Knol
Dagobert Duck
Mathia Koolhout,
Evelien van Tongerlo
Elvis Presly
Jeroen
Wolfkamp
BSc
Sadan
Peter Hoesein
Hendriks
Max Wantulla
Max van der Heide
26
27
B e e k e n k a m p G ro u p
Drie werkgebieden, drie exper tises, drie bedrijven
die gezamenlijk hun krachten bundelen.
Dat is de Beekenkamp Groep. Een familiebedrijf
bestaande uit Beekenkamp Plants, Beekenkamp
Verpakkingen en Deliflor Chr ysanten.
Sinds de oprichting in 1951 is de groep uitgegroeid
tot een bedrijf met 2500 medewerkers wereldwijd,
een productie van meer dan 1,7 miljard jonge planten
per jaar en een totaal areaal aan kassen
van meer dan 80 hectare.
Samen voor het beste resultaat
www.beekenkamp.nl