Site Archive
The College of Agriculture welcomed four new faculty members this semester.
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The Purdue Landscape Report team has received the Purdue Agriculture 2021 TEAM Award. An acronym for Together Everyone Achieves More, the college created the award in 1995 to recognize interdisciplinary team achievements of faculty and staff.
READ MOREScientists are honing the traits of speed, strength and near invulnerability in an important food crop that, much like a superhero, will help protect the vulnerable.
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Six student-athletes from Purdue University’s College of Agriculture earned Academic All-Big Ten recognition during the fall 2021 sports season.
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After decades in pursuit of plant cellular signaling, a researcher returns to questions raised by his early work — now equipped with advanced technology and the establishment of a $12.5 million institute.
In 1998, a Purdue University study challenged conventional thoughts about what triggered a plant’s response to infection and helped open the door to a new era of chemical signaling research. Now a scientist involved in that collaborative study hopes to answer the very questions his early research raised through a new National Science Foundation–Biological Integration Institute program.
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“I am a botanist who studies how plants respond to stressful environmental conditions,” explained Scott McAdam, assistant professor of botany and plant pathology. “The inspiration for my experiments comes from a close observation of nature, particularly while hiking.” As McAdam explained, however, the benefits of hiking are not limited to professionals. “Everyone can appreciate nature.”
READ MORESupply chain disruptions and material shortages are fueling speculation about a herbicide shortage for the 2022 agriculture growing season. Bill Johnson, Purdue professor of weed science and Purdue Extension weed specialist, is encouraging producers to…
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With looming threats of coffee leaf rust to farmers’ yields, Purdue University mycologist Catherine Aime is working to protect this staple of daily lives and the economies of areas throughout the world.
Aime and colleagues warned of the potential threat to the coffee industry in June. She now is part of a team supported by the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) and led by the Synergistic Hawaii Agriculture Council to investigate the fungus that causes the disease and to develop tactics to counter it.
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“My community, friends and peers are the reason I am making it through graduate school,” Katherine Rivera-Zuluga said. “One hundred percent.”
Rivera-Zuluga is a Ph.D. student in botany and plant pathology. She is one of four Colombian students currently pursuing a doctorate in the plant sciences and one of many Colombian students in the college and university at large. This community of countrymen and women has been a key support system for Rivera-Zuluga and many others, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were all away from home in the middle of a pandemic where everyone is getting sick and is scared,” she continued. “It was hard and depressing, but we gathered together when we could, we tried to keep each other safe in many ways. Most of us didn’t travel home over Christmas, but we had each other.”
Like the plot of a mystery novel, research has found a twist in the way plants cannibalize their own cells to survive under stress.
READ MOREThe tar spot disease in field corn is causing concern this season across the Midwest, including Indiana. Purdue Extension’s field crop pathologist, Darcy Telenko, expects this year’s outbreak to result in significant yield loss.
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“Being in the heart of the Congo Basin, I came to understand forestry’s importance to us as a country and was curious to do studies in that area,” shared Blaise Jumbam, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology.
Jumbam had long been interested in biology, but family members in his hometown of Bamenda, Cameroon urged him to pursue banking. Jumbam gave finance a try, studying at the University of Dschang, but switched to botany at the University of Buea.
READ MOREThe world around you is teeming with life you can’t see. Plants, soil, water, insects – even your hair and skin – are home to microfungi, and they both sustain and devastate life on our planet.
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Twelve student-athletes from Purdue University’s College of Agriculture were named Big Ten Distinguished Scholars for their academic excellence during the 2020-21 school year. In total, 85 Boilermakers earned the honor, setting a record for the university.
READ MOREStarting in the 2011-12 growing season, a powdery orange fungus called coffee leaf rust spread like wildfire throughout Latin America and Central America, damaging crops on 70% of farms and causing more than $3.2 billion in damage. The epidemic stemmed…
READ MORELeaves are the primary plant organs responsible for photosynthesis. Their size, shape and angles — all affected by cell patterning and growth — can also expose more of their surface to the sun, increasing energy stores and grain production in crops. E…
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If Mike Woodard walks into a greenhouse space and finds a researcher mixing fertilizer one batch at a time in a watering can, he will likely mention the availability of a fertilizer injector. Or if he sees someone watering by hand, he’ll offer information about an automated irrigation system.
READ MOREThe creation of genes with new functions is a major driver of developmental innovation in all living organisms. How these genes acquire new functions over evolutionary time scales, however, is unclear.
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