Rate My Professor Lucy Greenfield

Dr. Lucy Greenfield serves as a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Botany within the Division of Sciences and in the Ecology Programme at the University of Otago. Her research focuses on soil-plant interactions and nutrient cycling. She holds a PhD and is recognized as a faculty member affiliated with the Department of Botany. Greenfield contributes to undergraduate education, coordinating and teaching courses such as ECOL211 Community Ecology, which examines species interactions, community assembly, and responses to natural and human-induced changes, and AGRI322 Innovation and Healthy Soils, emphasizing sustainable agricultural practices without required textbooks, using Blackboard materials.

Greenfield has authored or co-authored at least 19 publications, with her work cited 595 times and read over 6,400 times on ResearchGate. Her research explores critical environmental issues including the effects of micro- and macroplastics on crop biomass, nutrient cycling, microbial biomass, and soil health; microbial degradation of bioplastics like PHBV limited by nutrient availability; impacts of plastic mulch films on nitrogen partitioning, soil microbial diversity, and maize biomass; plant-soil nitrogen dynamics influenced by LDPE and biodegradable PLA-PBAT plastics in barley mesocosms; N2O emissions, microbial communities, and winter barley growth in response to conventional and biodegradable microplastics; soil protease activity assessment methods; root hairs and protein addition promoting leucine aminopeptidase activity in barley; plant use of root-derived proteases for soil organic nitrogen uptake; regulation of soluble protein mineralization and protease activity by supply or demand; and species-specific responses to nitrogen competition between subtropical native tree seedlings and exotic grasses mediated by soil N availability. Key titles include 'Uncovering plant root traits and mechanisms that enable penetration, exploration, and exploitation of soil parent materials: a systematic review' (2025), 'Microbial degradation of bioplastic (PHBV) is limited by nutrient availability at high microplastic loadings' (2024 and correction 2025), 'Field-based assessment of the effect of conventional and biodegradable plastic mulch film on nitrogen partitioning, soil microbial diversity, and maize biomass' (2024), 'Increasing concentration of pure micro- and macro-LDPE and PP plastic negatively affect crop biomass, nutrient cycling, and microbial biomass' (2023), 'LDPE and biodegradable PLA-PBAT plastics differentially affect plant-soil nitrogen partitioning and dynamics in a Hordeum vulgare mesocosm' (2023), and 'Synthesis of methods used to assess soil protease activity' (2021).