Our industry partner, Indigo Ag, has reported preliminary performance results of Indigo Cotton, commercially-available cotton seed treated with an endophyte initially discovered in our lab, that was planted across 270,000 acres of the U.S. cotton belt in 2017. Post-harvest results from the 2017 growing season demonstrated a 14% average yield increase across localities with an added value of $68/per acre for cotton producers.

It may sound crazy, but we have seen effects like this dating back to our first cotton endophyte research field trials in 2012.

Full story here.

Endophyte research in the lab was selected by the Texas Office of Environmental Quality as a Finalist for the 2018 Texas Environmental Excellence Award for Agriculture. We ended up in 2nd place, but are nonetheless very honored to have been recognized as a finalist for this award.

The full list of winners and finalists is available here.

Congratulations to Christine Madamba, an undergraduate researcher in the lab, for winning 2nd place in the recent Mentorship in Entomology Forum held on Feb. 9, 2018. Her award-winning talk was titled, “Fungal seed treatment enhances defensive volatile response to herbivory in cotton.” Christine and her graduate student mentor, Cody Gale, each took home a cash prize for their outstanding efforts.

Congratulations to our very own Tyler Raszick for winning the 2018 Department of Entomology Outstanding Graduate Student Award! Tyler’s research is going very well and he’s been heavily involved in a number of department and campus-wide service activities. We are proud to claim one of the five most powerful grad students on campus as one of our own!

Full story here.

It’s not everyday that a truck crashes into your lab, but that’s exactly what happened.  Cesar was in the room at the time. Apart from getting covered in a pile of bricks, we are happy to report that he survived the experience with only a few bumps and bruises. Once the side of the building is rebuilt, we are going to name it the “Cesar Valencia almost Memorial Wall”.

Full story here.