Available student project opportunities at the Department of Crop Production Ecology
Page reviewed:
07/07/2026
This page lists potential student opportunities across the Department of Crop Production Ecology, including BSc thesis projects, MSc thesis projects, research internships, and summer internships.
The department conducts research, teaching, and collaboration to support the agriculture of the future. Student projects at the department address questions related to crop production systems, yield and quality, ecosystem services, and environmental impact, contributing to the development of more sustainable crop production.
Projects may include field, greenhouse, laboratory, imaging, modelling, data analysis, or literature-based work, depending on the topic and supervisor.
Explore the opportunities below to find a project that matches your interests, skills, and study programme. Click on each project title for more information; contact details for the responsible supervisor are included in the project description.
Please note that, unless stated otherwise, these are unpaid internships designed to give you hands-on research experience. Many students complete them as part of their degree, for example for course credits, or fund their stay through mobility programmes such as Erasmus+. We're happy to help with the paperwork where needed.
Understanding which climate conditions affect crop yields, how strongly, and how future yields can change under these conditions is crucial for improving crop models, ensuring future food production, and supporting timely climate adaptation. You can choose to focus on one historical yield losses and climatic contributions, past yield variability and future yield simulations, or climatic drivers of simultaneous widespread yield losses. Experience with coding languages such as Python, MATLAB, or R is required.
This master thesis will explore the combined effects of ecological intensification (diversified crop rotation), crop nutrition and crop protection on winter wheat yields using a Swedish data set of 400 fungicide trials for leaf blotch diseases performed on-farm. Winter wheat is an important crop throughout Europe and 70% of the fungicide use in winter wheat is targeting leaf blotch diseases. We are looking for a motivated student with a background in agronomy and interest in the research question and data analysis.
We are offering a master’s thesis project exploring the role of insects in weed control through weed seed predation. We have a 3-year dataset including insects, weed seed predation, and seed bank, and the project will focus on how landscape features shape weed seed predation across space and time. The topic can be adapted to the students’ interests – including opportunities for extra fieldwork or experiments.
When? Early 2027 (Flexible) Where? Ultuna Campus Who? MSc thesis project (can be BSc in English)
Description
How do legume and cereal roots interact when grown together? In this project, you will work with selected crop combinations in a rhizotron experiment designed to track early root development. You will help set up the experiment, collect root images and trait data, and analyse how different crop partners influence root growth - gaining skills in plant phenotyping, intercropping research, and image analysis.
When? Spring-autumn 2027 (Fixed) Where? Ultuna Campus Who? MSc thesis project (can be BSc in English)
Description
What can Sweden's forgotten lupin varieties still do? Five historical Swedish accessions of narrow-leaved lupin survive in the NordGen genebank, but nobody has described them under modern conditions. In this project you will grow all five in an outdoor netted area and phenotype them plant by plant - emergence, flowering, architecture, maturity, shatter and yield components - gaining skills in plant phenotyping, legume agronomy and genetic resource characterisation.
I’m offering a master’s thesis project exploring how landscape composition and configuration influence insect and weed communities in 10 organic fields around Uppsala. One year of data is already available, with further sampling planned for 2027. The student will analyse landscape metrics and their relationships with insect and weed communities over time, gaining experience in landscape ecology, spatial analysis, and ecological data interpretation. The research questions can be adapted to the student’s interests through discussion.
This thesis project will investigate how cereal–legume intercropping influences weed biomass and weed diversity in organic cropping systems. The student will compare weed communities across different crop combinations and monocultures using field data from InterRoot plots. The project will include field sampling, plant identification, biodiversity assessment and data analysis, providing experience in agroecology, field-based research and sustainable crop production systems.
When? Autumn/winter 2027 (Flexible but no later than spring 2028) Where? Ultuna Campus Who? MSc thesis project
Description
The thesis aims to compile and analyze Swedish and Nordic experiments on potassium fertilization in intensive ley production. The work will highlight how potassium strategy, soil type and soil potassium storage affect dry matter yield, overwintering and feed quality at several harvests. The results will provide a basis for a popular science compilation, practical recommendations and design of future field trials in sustainable grassland production with high and resource-efficient production over time in Sweden. Based on the compilation, this will lead to a new proposal for a field trial series in the autumn of 2028.
How do wheat and pea respond to multiple stresses under different agroecological management practices? In this summer project, you will help assess field trials testing practices such as undersown cover crops. You will gain practical experience in crop measurements, field phenotyping, monitoring of abiotic and biotic stress factors, and field data processing.
Overall Project
HEROCROP - Harnessing Emerging Resilient and Optimized CROP breeding to develop multi-stress ready agroecological systems across Europe’s diverse pedoclimatic regions
Can undersown cover crops reduce stress pressure and support biodiversity in wheat and pea systems? In this summer project, you will help monitor weeds, pests, and biodiversity in field trials testing agroecological management practices. You will gain practical experience in field scouting, biodiversity assessments, crop system monitoring, and field data processing.
Overall Project
HEROCROP - Harnessing Emerging Resilient and Optimized CROP breeding to develop multi-stress ready agroecological systems across Europe’s diverse pedoclimatic regions
A field experiment is planned to investigate the weed communities and nutrient dynamics in cereal-legume intercropping of different faba bean cultivars and mutant lines, wheat crop and oat crop at two nitrogen levels and specific inoculation treatments. It will consist of multiple intermediate harvests of above-ground crops and weed samples. A big part is identifying the weed species, which requires no pre-knowledge of identifying species.
Can rhizobia adapted to Swedish conditions help lupins fix more nitrogen than commercial inoculants? In this internship, you will help run a pot experiment as part of RhizoLupin, comparing newly isolated rhizobia with commercial products. You will grow inoculated lupins, monitor plant development, and help harvest plants for biomass, yield and nitrogen fixation analyses.
How can we make below-ground traits useful for pea breeding? In this internship, you will help run a controlled tube experiment as part of N-Fix+, a project focused on improving symbiotic nitrogen fixation in pea. You will work with pea breeding material and help assess root traits, nodulation capacity and early plant growth under controlled conditions.
Overall Project
N-Fix+ - increasing pea productivity through improved symbiotic nitrogen fixation
I’m offering two internships exploring the impact of weed abundance and diversity in insect communities’ composition and their effects on weed seed predation. The internships are part of an ongoing project running in 10 organic fields around Uppsala. The student will have the chance to develop its skills in data collection, insect identification, statistical analysis and scientific writing.
