“The Dirt”
Lab Highlights

Desi Thimesch (Washburn University) joined us this summer to study the effect of abiotic stress on root anatomical variation in Tripsacum dactyloides.

Congratulations to Joel Swift for being awarded a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology (PRFB) from the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program (NSF-PGRP)!

Read more here: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2305703

Congratulations to Kayla Clouse for being awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA)!

Project Title: Building better bioinoculants: Using experimental evolution to improve the efficacy of a plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria

Congratulations to Joel Swift for being selected as a 2023 NMDC Ambassador!

https://microbiomedata.org/ambassadors/

Kayla and Joel visited collaborators at NCSU (Kleiner and Balint-Kurti labs) and presented at the Microbiome Movement – AgBioTech 2023 conference.

Move-N-Learn tour of the Haworth greenhouses. Natalie gave an overview of maize and Tripsacum research in the Wagner lab currently underway.

Congratulations to Martel Ellis for being accepted to the KU EEB Ph.D. program!!!

Carmen tested out the new LICOR-600 on her children of the corn. She is taking plant chlorophyll and photosynthesis measurements. This experiment is determining if environmental isolates, from the bacterial genus Luteibacter, can confer drought tolerance to plants.

2022 International Phytobiomes Conference (Denver, CO)
Congratulations to Martel Ellis and Carmen Rodriguez (KU undergrads), Anna Garrell (Collaborator; NCSU, Kleiner Lab), and Nichole Ginnan (KU postdoc) who presented their awesome research!
2022 ESA Conference (Montréal, Canada)
 Congratulations to KU graduate students Haley Burrill (Bever/Schultz Lab), Reb Bryant (Bever/Schultz Lab), and Ceyda Kural (Wagner Lab) who traveled to Canada for ESA 2022 to present their research!
2022 REU symposium
Congratulations and amazing work Martel Ellis, Maggie Wilson, Carmen Rodriguez (left to right)!!!
2022 Summer BBQ. Pictured (left to right); Felicity Tso, Carmen Rodriguez, Natalie Ford, Tokee Tareq, Amanda Eckhoff, Maggie Wagner, Joel Swift, Nichole Ginnan, Kayla Clouse, Ceyda Kural, Maggie Wilson, Yufan Zhou, and Martel Ellis.
Rainout shelters are up over Tripsacum dactyloides plots, way to go Ceyda! Thanks to Keana Tang, Katie Eckhoff, Isabel Pen (pictured left to right) and Joel Swift (not pictured)

Congratulations to Ceyda Kural for receiving a NSF GRFP Fellowship for 2021!!!!!

Felicity and Tokee presenting their research at the KU Genomics Symposium (Thank you to Nichole for help organizing)!
2022 Spring Soil collections across both prairie and agricultural collection sites.
Pictured (left to right): Felicity Tso, Carmen Rodriguez, Yufan Zhou, Carmen (again), Nichole Ginnan.
Ceyda Kural searching for Tripsacum dactyloides (a maize relative) in Konza Prairie in summer 2021.
2021 Summer planting (Pictured: Left, Hannah Reid ; right, Felicity Tso) and some rad root imaging from Nichole Ginnan!
Konza Prairie (Pictured: Maggie Wagner)
CWR Site
Smoky Valley Ranch
2020 Summer soil collections across Kansas.