Department news

Retiring faculty honored for 2023

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.

John Yoder

Department faculty support UC ANR conference with expertise, commitment

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.

Strawberry Breeding Program releases five 'superior' varieties resistant to deadly fungus

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.

Picnic Day 2023: How to pop popcorn

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 becomes a phenotype monitoring machine

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.

Berry's work inspires campus tree trial

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.

Crump, Zepeda win grant for sustainability in Mexico

Ana Zepeda has received a $7,300-grant to help women in southern Mexico plant a community garden, intended to provide better nutrition for their children and keep them in school.

Zepeda developed the project as part of her doctoral dissertation in the lab of Amanda Crump, and she’ll start the work later this year. The grant, from the UC Davis Advancing Sustainable Development Goals program, furthers the university’s commitment to support development at home and around the world.

Brummer: Ag must shift to multi-crop systems

Plant breeders can help America re-orient our dominant system of single-crop agriculture toward a multi-crop landscape that is less costly to farmers, better for the environment, helps slow climate change and still yields a profit. But, those efforts are just one part of a complex system that also will require the buy-in of farmers themselves, supported by political will, new agricultural policies and the cooperation of scientists, seed companies, machinery and fertilizer manufacturers, insurance providers, banks and environmental groups.