“Super-long divisions in trees take a long time,” he said. But once we understand the mechanism, “we will be able to engineer trees with faster cell divisions and faster growth.” Read more about Smertenko’s project here.
Trio of videos feature importance of WSU wine research
CAHNRS Viticulture & Enology research faculty and students star in a newly released video series.
Watch the three videos to learn about the innovation at the core of Washington state wine research.
Scientist protects spinach seed industry from crippling disease
Northwest farmers grow the seeds that fuel the fast-growing baby leaf spinach market. But they’re increasingly burdened by a devastating disease that takes their fields out of commission for decades at a time.
Lindsey du Toit aims to change that. The CAHNRS Plant Pathology professor leads research to help growers reduce the impact of a crippling fungal disease called Fusarium wilt.
Browse to research genes behind healthier vegetable oil
John Browse, Regents’ Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Plant Sciences, will investigate new ways to breed canola for healthier vegetable oils as part of a grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.
Research by Browse, who is part of the WSU Institute of Biological Chemistry, will help increase health benefits of oils, and help farmers by providing oils that are preferred by the consumer.
At the Bread Lab, Director Stephen Jones helps Pacific Northwest farmers, chefs, bakers and distillers get more out of their grains—more flavor, more products, more impact.
For his contributions to Northwest farms, food and beverages, Jones is the 2017 recipient of the Angelo Pellegrini Award.
Dryland partnership pays off with wheat contest win
For more than a hundred years, WSU wheat breeders like Arron Carter have worked side-by-side with Washington’s dryland farmers to develop new wheat varieties that thrive in the state’s driest regions.
That century-long partnership is paying off. CAHNRS-bred winter wheat claimed the state yield title and placed fifth in the nation in the National Wheat Foundation’s 2017 dryland winter wheat yield contest.
Like many CAHNRS agriculture students, Esther Rugoli grew up on a family farm. Unlike most of those students, she grew up on a subsistence farm in rural Rwanda with 11 brothers and sisters.
“It’s been my dream since I was young to study agriculture in college and help Africa be more food secure,” said Rugoli.
The WSU sophomore, majoring in agricultural biotechnology, has plans to attend graduate school before returning home.
Bringing the Lewis-Clark Valley’s wine industry back to life
Walking rows of syrah on a wintry afternoon, Coco Umiker takes in the panorama from her Lewiston, Idaho, vineyard.
Sense of place means a great deal to Umiker. She was the driving force in the 2016 establishment of the Lewis-Clark American Viticultural Area, or AVA, a federally designated, unique wine grape-growing region. A graduate of the School of Food Science, Umiker received the 536th Washington State University Alumni Achievement Award.
“I am honored to lead and help broaden the impacts of the Society,” he said. “Service and involvement with this extraordinary group of international researchers helps me and my WSU colleagues become better at what we do.”
The free event is Friday, March 30, at Ensminger Pavilion at WSU Pullman.
Graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, staff, and community members are invited to participate. There will be a speaker panel, mixer, and student poster competition with cash prizes.
Participants can hone their presentation and networking skills, share research with fellow scientists in breeding, genetics, bioinformatics, and molecular biology. Deadline for abstract submission and registration is March 1.
Record attendance, great feedback at oilseed workshops
For the third year in a row, attendance records were at an all-time high at the annual WSU-based Washington Oilseed Cropping Systems (WOCS) workshops.
“I thought it was great seeing so many growers at all the workshops, and so many of them were new faces,” said Scot Hulbert, research lead for the WOCS project. The full-day workshops were held in Hartline, Richland, and Colfax with 317 individual attendees, 170 of whom were attending for the first time.
Fellowship helps Olsson study
bee, canola interaction
Rachel Olsson, doctoral student in the Department of Entomology, was awarded the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Fellowship.
Funds help Olsson study interactions between canola crops and bee pollinators.
Grants fund water quality, entomology research
Congratulations to recent Entomology grant awardees:
• John Stark, director of the Washington Stormwater Center, received $500,000 from the Washington State Department of Ecology for its 2018 Governor’s Budget Water Quality Project.
• Professor and entomologist Elizabeth Beers received a $15,467 grant from the Washington Tree Fruit Commission to research insecticide resistance of spotted wing drosophila in sweet cherry crops.
• Nick Naeger, a postdoctoral researcher in the Sheppard Lab, was awarded $7,500 from the Honey Bee Health Coalition for his work on “Fungal Extracts for Honey Bee Health.”
• Professor Doug Walsh received a $6,000 grant from the Washington Hop Commission to work on tests of a hop miticide.
