September 3, 2020
Penn State alumnus Jordan Barr is living his “field of dreams” as head groundskeeper for the Burlington Bees, a Los Angeles Angels-affiliated baseball team in southeastern Iowa.
August 27, 2020
Elsa Sánchez, professor of horticultural systems management in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, has been appointed to serve on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Advisory Committee on Minority Farmers.
August 17, 2020
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State researchers, in a recent study, were surprised to learn that they could take the exact same number of seeds from the same plants, put them in agricultural fields across the Mid-Atlantic region and get profoundly different stands of cover crops a few months later. The study came to be known as “‘farm-tuning’ cover crop mixtures,” noted researcher Jason Kaye, professor of soil biogeochemistry, who added that the findings are significant because they show the need to customize cover crop mixes to achieve desired ecosystem services, depending on soil and climatic conditions. Cover crop mixtures comprised of multiple species planted in rotation between cash crops provide a suite of benefits — such as erosion reduction, weed control, and adding carbon and nitrogen to the soil. But it turns out, the expression of species in a mixture can differ greatly across locations.
August 12, 2020
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Flavonoid compounds — produced by the roots of some sorghum plants — positively affect soil microorganisms, according to Penn State researchers, who suggest the discovery is an early step in developing a frost-resistant line of the valuable crop for North American farmers. That is important because sorghum is a crop that can respond to climate change because of its high water- and nitrogen-use efficiency, according to Surinder Chopra, professor of maize genetics, and Mary Ann Bruns, professor of soil microbiology. A close relative to corn, it is the fifth most valuable cereal crop globally.
August 10, 2020
Flavonoid compounds — produced by the roots of some sorghum plants — positively affect soil microorganisms, according to Penn State researchers, who suggest the discovery is an early step in developing a frost-resistant line of the valuable crop for North American farmers.
July 24, 2020
Surinder Chopra, professor of maize genetics in the College of Agricultural Sciences, has been awarded funding from the U.S Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study the improvement of corn defenses against the fall armyworm.
July 6, 2020
Flavonoids from a specific line of corn act as anti-inflammatory agents in the guts of mice with an inflammatory-bowel-disease-like condition, according to a team of researchers who said flavonoid-rich corn should be studied to determine its potential to provide a protective effect on human health.
June 8, 2020
Rising senior Amanda Grub is using her education in the College of Education to bring community-supported agriculture to her hometown, while also building little libraries and completing a virtual internship with the University's Agriculture and Environment Center.
May 5, 2020
By manipulating the expression of one gene, geneticists can induce a form of “stress memory” in plants that is inherited by some progeny, giving them the potential for more vigorous, hardy and productive growth, according to Penn State researchers, who suggest the discovery has significant implications for plant breeding.
May 4, 2020
If warming continues unabated in the Midwest, in 50 years we can expect the best conditions for corn and soybean production to have shifted from Iowa and Illinois to Minnesota and the Dakotas, according to Penn State researchers.
April 15, 2020
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — With speed and ingenuity, more than 100 researchers across Penn State are shifting their research programs to address the COVID-19 crisis, thanks to funding from a seed grant initiative led by the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. In total, the initiative awarded $2.25 million to 47 teams of researchers from three campuses, 10 colleges and more than 25 departments. “I am inspired by the nimbleness of our faculty to transition their research programs toward finding solutions,” said Andrew Read, director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. “Our infrastructure at Penn State facilitates this transition. For example, the University houses a high-security BSL-3 laboratory that enables in vitro drug testing, as well as facilities for conducting genomics, metabolomics, fermentation and cryogenic electron microscopy, among many other features.”
