Drs. Shannon Pinson and Trevis Huggins served upon invitation on the ARS committee that formulated the new USDA-ARS research plan for National Program 301 which will be used to guide and prioritize research conducted during 2023-2027 on plant genetic resources, genomics, information management, bioinformatics, and genetic improvement.

August 2- 6, Dr. Yulin Jia, Biological Science Technicians Heather Box and Kristina Trahern attended 2021 plant health virtual meeting organized by American Phytopathological society (APS) (https://www.apsnet.org/meetings/annual/PlantHealth2021/program/Pages/default.aspx).  This year APS had 1249 participants from thirty countries. On August 3, Dr. Jia presented a talk titled ‘Mapping rice genes involved in blast resistance, chalkiness and yield related components’ to 42 APS members and specialists and addressed questions from the audience. 

August 5, Dr. Georgia Eizenga, (Research Geneticist) with assistance from Dr. Jai Rohlia (Research Agronomist), Quynh Grunden and Tiffany Sookaserm, Biological Science Technicians, provided guidance to Rachel Imel, Master’s student, and Karla Miserendino, on collecting gas exchange measurements related to photosynthesis from rice plants in the field and harvesting whole plant tissue. These results will be compared with measurements taken in the greenhouse and the controlled environment high throughput phenotypic facility at Purdue University. This study is a collaboration with Dr. Diane Wang (Purdue University). 

August 10, the article “Keeping Arsenic Out Of Rice” in PNAS Front Matters by journalist Dr. Carolyn Beans described the research led by Dr. Jinyoung Barnaby’s project and her HQ funded post-doc, Dr. Christina Fernandez-Baca, on reducing grain inorganic arsenic content in rice through genetics and cultural management. The story can be found at https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113071118

August 16, Drs. Jinyoung Barnaby and Yulin Jia attended the 38th virtual meeting of 2021 Mid Atlantic Plant Molecular Biology society (http://wp.towson.edu/mapmbs/agenda/).  Ninety-two scientists, students, and Postdoctoral Research Associates attended the meeting.  Dr. Barnaby presented an invited talk titled ‘Exploring Mitigation Strategies for Methane Emissions Through Rice Genetics and/or Soil Microbiome’ and Dr. Jia presented ‘Genome Organization and Co-Evolutionary Biology of Host-Pathogen Interactions,’.       

August 18, Dr. Jinyoung Barnaby provided information regarding methanogenic microbial species associated with methane emissions to Drs. Desmond Jimenez, a chief science officer, and Natalie Breakfield, a VP of research and discovery, at the NewLeaf Symbiotics, Inc., St. Louis, MO.

August 24, Dr. Jinyoung Barnaby presented an invited talk titled ‘System biology-driven breeding for crop improvement by integrating high-throughput omics technologies’ at the 2021 Korean Women in Science & Engineering Society, Ecoscience webinar series. About 50 scientists from academia, governmental institutes, industries in USA and South Korea attended the webinar.  

July 23, Dr. Yulin Jia provided information of genetic markers for blast resistance to a scientist in a US company for marker assisted breeding effort.