Welcome Xime and Juan

A big welcome to Ximena Cibiils Stewart who started her PhD at HIE this last week. She joins us with her husband (Juan) and will be investigating how silicon defences against herbivores are potentially improved by mutualistic fungi (mycorrhizal fungi and endophytes). The project is co-supervised by Jeff Powell at HIE and involves collaborations with AgResearch (New Zealand), INIA (Uruguay) and the University of York (UK).