Nathaniel Oragbon
Research Focus
Plants require various nutrients for optimum growth and development. Iron is a micronutrient that regulates various metabolic processes in plants and its deficiency negatively impacts these metabolic processes. High pH soils and abiotic stress also exacerbate iron deficiency. My project seeks to uncover how plants manage environmental stresses and balance iron nutrition. Since the plant rhizosphere, well-known to host a diverse community of beneficial microorganisms, plays a vital role in nutrient acquisition in plants, I also aim to uncover the role of beneficial microbe-plant relationships. I am interested in studying how beneficial microbes can be leveraged to improve plants growing under iron-deficient and environmental stress conditions, where plant iron uptake is limited.
