Date: March 22, 2024

The Plant Breeding and Genetics Graduate Student Club proudly announces the 11th annual R. F. Baker Plant Breeding Symposium! Please join us on March 22nd, 2024 at the ISU Alumni Center.

Where

The symposium will take place in person at Iowa State University's Alumni Center. Come and join us!

Address: 429 Alumni Ln, Ames, IA 50011

There will also be a virtual option with streaming available over WebEx. The Webex link for the symposium can be found on this page on the day of the symposium.

Registration

The registration for the symposium is available HERE. Registration is free for both in person and virtual attendees.

Artificial intelligence is the focus of many conversations as society tries to understand its uses and implications. Arti Singh is internationally recognized for her work exploring AI’s potential for agriculture, and she is encouraging other women to take leadership in AI technologies for the future. Two years ago, Singh, a plant breeder and associate professor in Iowa State University’s Department of Agronomy, started to organize a new group of students as Women in Agriculture and Artificial Intelligence (WIAA) to encourage women to get more involved in AI and recognize its potential to solve diverse ag-related problems. 

Sorghum is a productive and versatile annual crop used worldwide for livestock feed. Until now, the plant, which originated in the tropics, has done best in warmer regions with longer growing seasons than the Upper Midwest. A new USDA-supported project will test and release several new sorghum cultivars that promise high-yielding, nutritious forage for beef and dairy cattle operations in the north-central states. The project will be led by Maria Salas-Fernandez, associate professor of agronomy at Iowa State University, who directs the northernmost public sorghum breeding program in the United States. The effort is funded by a $498,960 grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.

Professor and plant breeder Asheesh K. (Danny) Singh has been named to the George Sprague Professorship in Agronomy by the Department of Agronomy in Iowa State University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Singh succeeds William Beavis, professor emeritus in agronomy, who has served in the position since 2007. It is quite an honor to be associated with Dr. Sprague, one of the foremost plant breeders, Singh said. His work is still relevant and is an inspiration to continue exploring all available tools and technologies to address the complex production challenges ahead of us.

Jianming Yu's extensive background in plant genetics and breeding research will serve him well in his new role as director of the Raymond F. Baker Center for Plant Breeding at Iowa State University. Yu is a professor and Pioneer Distinguished Chair in Maize Breeding in Iowa State's Department of Agronomy. He is known as one of the top scientists in the world for quantitative genetics, which interfaces plant breeding, genomics, molecular genetics and statistics.

Iowa State University professor Thomas Lübberstedt assumed the role of president of the National Association of Plant Breeders at the organization’s annual meeting, July 16-20, in Greenville, South Carolina, hosted by Clemson University. Lübberstedt, K. J. Frey Chair in Agronomy, is currently the university’s director of the Distance Master’s Program for Plant Breeding. 

The latest artificial intelligence tools will allow researchers to develop digital twins of individual crop plants and entire farm fields, helping plant breeders improve crop varieties and farmers boost production.

The researchers behind a new artificial intelligence research institute say their work can accelerate the productivity and sustainability of agriculture at a time when the world’s population is increasing, cropland is decreasing and the climate is changing.

Xianran Li, adjunct associate professor, has accepted a position with USDA-ARS, Wheat Health, Genetics, & Quality Research in Pullman, WA.  His last day will be June 18^th, 2021.  Xianran joined ISU Agronomy in Jan 2013 and has been active in the plant breeding related activities (seminar, workshop, and guest lecture).  He has been successful in leading independent research, guiding other lab members’ research, and securing federal grants.

University awards honor more than 70 faculty and staff

More than 70 Iowa State faculty and staff will be recognized this fall for winning one of the university's annual awards, which include a new category honoring interdisciplinary team research. Following is the list of the employees and the promotions or awards for which they will be recognized.

Outstanding Achievement in Research

The award recognizes a tenured faculty member who has a national or international reputation for contributions in research and has influenced the research activities of students.

John Levis, Angela B. Pavitt Professor in English

Thomas Lubberstedt, K.J. Frey Chair in Agronomy

Asheesh (Danny) Singh, associate professor in agronomy, received the Mid-Career Achievement in Research Award and the Raymond and Mary Baker Agronomic Excellence Award. Singh is an accomplished plant breeder and researcher who is a pioneer in combining cultivar development and plant breeding with engineering tools and machine learning-based data analytics. He serves as the Monsanto Chair in Soybean Breeding at Iowa State University and has developed 36 cultivars grown on more than 6 million acres annually.

Asheesh (Danny) Singh, associate professor in agronomy, received the Mid-Career Achievement in Research Award and the Raymond and Mary Baker Agronomic Excellence Award. Singh is an accomplished plant breeder and researcher who is a pioneer in combining cultivar development and plant breeding with engineering tools and machine learning-based data analytics. He serves as the Monsanto Chair in Soybean Breeding at Iowa State University and has developed 36 cultivars grown on more than 6 million acres annually.

The researchers call their effort COALESCE – COntext Aware LEarning for Sustainable CybEr-agricultural systems. They have just won a five-year, $7 million Cyber-Physical Systems Frontier award jointly funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Introducing the latest cyber capabilities in sensing, modeling and reasoning to the real world of plants and soil, the researchers wrote in a project summary, will “enable farmers to respond to crop stressors with lower cost, greater agility, and significantly lower environmental impact than current practices.” The lead principal investigator for the project is Soumik Sarkar, the Walter W.

Clayton Carley was also selected to serve as one of 20 ISRR (International Society of Root Research) Ambassadors from around the world and will help coordinate a mini-symposium within the conference. He was invited to present his project, and recognition also comes with the coverage of conference fees and provides a small scholarship.