News

The UC Davis African Plant Breeding Academy has been awarded $2 million to train scores of African scientists to advance crop breeding, increase production and improve nutrition for regional crops across the continent.

Sometimes, science has to happen when the opportunity presents itself. It can't wait for the scientist to develop a rigorous theoretical framework or apply for funding. And sometimes, that opportunity leads to unexpected and rich collaboration across disciplines.

Two Department of Plant Sciences faculty members, Valerie Eviner and Mary Cadenasso, contributed to this study in a suprising way that speaks to the collaboration possible at UC Davis. Read their story here.

Eduardo Blumwald sees them every year: the freshmen in his courses who wrestle with basic scientific concepts. The father of three knew he could help ‒ by providing relatively simple information about advanced research to high school teachers.

Tree nut experts from around the world are gathering at the UC Davis Convention Center this week to discuss the challenges faced by the people growing and processing almonds and pistachios. Researchers are outlining possible solutions and exchanging ideas for how to combat problems of water scarcity, increasingly saline water and soils, rising wintertime temperatures and new pests that come with the changing conditions.

Louise Ferguson has been named a fellow of the American Society for Horticultural Science and will be inducted into the organization’s 60th class of fellows at a ceremony Aug. 1. The award recognizes decades of leadership and, more recently, Ferguson’s efforts to build a leadership training program for younger members.

The recognition is “more than well-deserved and should have happened YEARS ago!” wrote ASHS Executive Director Michael Neff. ASHS fellows are elected “in recognition of outstanding contributions to the science, profession, or industry of horticulture,” he added.

Dwarfing genes in cereal crops made the Green Revolution of the 1960s possible, but they have limitations. Scientists at UC Davis have discovered a gene that can overcome some of those limitations in wheat by controlling plant height, while boosting yield in fields where water is less plentiful. Their discovery was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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The 12th annual UC Davis Plant Sciences Symposium 2023 will focus on "Plants in the climate crisis," with an outstanding line-up of speakers tackling the 21st century's most significant global challenge.

Five retired faculty from the Department of Plant Sciences will be honored for their outstanding scholarship, the global impact of their contributions to their fields, their service, their expansive teaching and their generous mentoring. A dinner will be held at 6 p.m. Friday, April 28, in the UC Davis Conference Center.

Department Chair Gail Taylor will host the festivities. Current faculty will introduce the honorees.

The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research, or FFAR, named UC Davis Assistant Professor Alessandro Ossola among its 10 recipients of the 2022 New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Award.

Eight faculty from the Department of Plant Sciences are heading to a statewide convention next week, with the aim of helping to improve the statewide outreach that brings the latest university research and best practices to farmers, ranchers and others in the field of agriculture.

The University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources is hosting the 2023 Statewide Conference next week in Fresno. ANR’s vision is for a thriving California full of healthy people and communities, supported by healthy food systems and environments.

The UC Davis Strawberry Breeding Program is releasing five new strawberry varieties that resist the soilborne disease Fusarium wilt, while also offering high yields and improved fruit quality.

UC Eclipse, UC Golden Gate, UC Keystone, UC Monarch and UC Surfline will be available for sale to California nurseries from Foundation Plant Services later this month.

At Picnic Day, one of the most popular exhibits is the popcorn shelling machine, in front of the Plant and Environmental Sciences building. Visitors grab a few ears of special corn grown just for popping and toss them down a shaft. Two mighty wheels break the kernels off the cobs and spit the cobs out one chute. Down a second chute clatter the kernels, which are scooped into a bag for folks to take home.

Then what??? This next part is even more fun – be sure to include the kids!

Taylor Swift: A cultural icon, controversial TicketMaster name, and now a remote phenotype monitoring machine. 

And a phenotype, for most of us who wouldn't know, is the science-y word for the physical traits that any living thing would have, such as green leaves or a fabulous voice - the physical expressions of the thing's genes mixed with its environmental influences.

Alison Berry helped coin the term “climate-ready trees” years ago. Now, the work of the professor emerita in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences has inspired a campus-wide experiment to test species that will continue to offer delicious shade as the climate grows hotter.