Research Interests: My research program focuses on crop mineral nutrition and plant responses environmental abiotic stresses in the soil. In this general area, there are three major projects currently underway:
- Research on fundamental aspects of plant mineral nutrient transport with emphasis on improving the accumulation of nutritionally important mineral nutrients in plants (Fe, Zn) and minimizing the entry of toxic heavy metals (Cd, Pb) into the food chain.
- The phytoremediation of heavy metal contaminated soils, primarily from the perspective of elucidating fundamental mechanisms of heavy metal transport, tolerance and accumulation. This research focuses on the heavy metal (Zn and Cd) hyperaccumulator, Thlaspi caerulescens, as a model plant system for studying heavy metal accumulation in plants.
- A major program in the laboratory deals with mechanisms plants employ to tolerate acid soils, which comprise up to 50% of the world’s arable lands. This work involves identifying genes and the associated physiological mechanisms that confer tolerance to toxic levels of aluminum on acid soils, and the ability to function under conditions of low phosphorus availability on acid soils (P efficiency). This project involves an integration of physiological investigations of Al tolerance mechanisms with the molecular mapping and cloning of Al tolerance genes in important crop plants (maize, and sorghum) as well as in Arabidopsis.
| 
Email: Lvk1@cornell.edu
Leon.Kochian@ars.usda.gov
Office Phone: (607) 255-2454
|
