Mark Lundy develops tools for farmers for effective nitrogen fertilizer management, working at the interface of research and the ag community.
Barbara Blanco-Ulate studies how fruit and vegetables ripen to improve their quality, nutrition and shelf-life after harvest.
Amelie Gaudin develops sustainable and resilient agroecosystems that have biodiversity and ecosystem services as a basis for improvement.
Brad Hanson works with farmers to control weeds and pests in perennial crops, improving both farm profits and the environment.
Bruce Linquist works with the farmers of California to ensure long-term sustainability of rice by looking at nutrient use, water efficiency and reducing pollution.
Giulia Marino empowers farmers to keep their orchards producing despite changes in climate, water and soil.
Grey Monroe seeks the causes and consequences of mutation bias in plant genetics and applies these findings to improve crops’ ability to thrive amid climate stress.
Cameron Pittelkow focuses on increasing crop productivity while reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint.
Li Tian uses biochemistry, physiology and genetics to increase the nutrition of wheat and pomegranates.
The Plant Sciences at UC Davis
We want to take a moment to appreciate the almost 120-year history of the plant sciences at UC Davis.
1868: Division of Agronomy was one of the first established at the new UC Berkeley
1906: University Regents take over the property to become the University Farm.
1909: First University Farm Picnic Day event to honor the new campus dormitories. Floats and parades became a staple within ten years. Picnic Day has become the largest annual campus event.
1915: The Department of Vegetable Crops established at the University Farm in Davis. (Truck Crops) The image shows West Hall, originally built in 1914.
1918: Courses in winemaking at Berkeley dropped, but viticulture continued at Davis.
1922: The Landscape Horticulture Department and 4-year undergraduate programs are established.
1933: Pomology Department moved from UC Berkeley to the Davis farm. Outreach programs for local agriculture continue to grow.
1951: Davis College of Agriculture was established independent of UC Berkeley.
1959: Regents declared that UC Davis was a general campus and could offer more programs.
1959: UC Davis agricultural engineer Coby Lorenzen teamed up with UC Davis vegetable crops researcher Jack Hanna to develop the UC-Blackwelder tomato harvester and a tomato variety that could withstand the rigors of mechanical picking.
1993: The C.M. Rick Tomato Genetics Resource Center (TGRC) is a genebank of tomato wild relatives, monogenic mutants and miscellaneous genetic stocks. It was founded by the late Dr. Charles M. Rick, who collected a large share of its wild species accessions. The inset photo shows Rick on one of his trips to South America to gather germplasm.
2004: The Department of Plant Sciences was created by consolidating the four commodity-based departments of Agronomy and Range Science, Pomology, Vegetable Crops and Environmental Horticulture.
2024: The Department of Plant Sciences celebrates its 20th anniversary.
