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Big Data for Better Sweetpotatoes

N.C. PSI News

Aug 5, 2020

Agriculture Loses Longtime Advocate Dan Weathington

NC State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is remembering friend Dan Weathington, a supporter and advocate for the North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative. Weathington recently passed away. 
Man holding a fig branch

Jul 22, 2020

Curious, Creative, Connected, Caring

Throughout his NC State career, engineer Mike Boyette has used these four Cs as a guide for transforming North Carolina agriculture and cultivating a cadre of alumni committed to making a difference. 
Three different varieties of sweetpotatoes with different skin colors.

Jul 10, 2020

‘Map’ of Sweetpotato Genome to Improve Breeding Efforts

NC State scientists recently published a scientific paper that mapped the genetic locations of economically important traits in sweetpotatoes such as higher yield and disease resistance. Their genetic map may lead to breeding better sweetpotatoes. 
A sandy field of soybeans

Jun 29, 2020

Using Leaf Fungi to Improve Crop Resilience

An interdisciplinary team led by Christine Hawkes is identifying beneficial fungi found in five key crops with the aim of using them to help plants fend off diseases and tolerate drought stress. 
A group of students in a corn field as the sun sets. (From Summer 2019)

Jun 22, 2020

CALS Researchers Return to the Bench and Field

As NC State ramps up the Research Restart process, here’s how three researchers from across the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences are returning to the lab bench and test field after time away due to COVID-19. 
A small white box on PVC pipe poles over plots of soybeans in sandy soil.

Jun 9, 2020

Low-Cost Cameras Could Be Sensors to Remotely Monitor Crop Stress

Researchers from CALS and COE, led by postdoctoral research scholar Paula Ramos-Giraldo, have worked together to construct a low-cost camera system to monitor crop stress remotely. Their StressCam will aid researchers, plant breeders and ultimately farmers. 
Bottles of hand sanitizer.

Jun 9, 2020

Fewer Cars Mean More Hand Sanitizer

NC State partners with Novozymes to make a product once taken for granted – hand sanitizer. 
Seedlings with mutations in genes involved in making a plant growth hormone have curly cotyledons, the first two “leaves” of a plant shoot, or short roots. (Labeled seedlings on black)

Jun 3, 2020

Complementary Mutations: A Rollercoaster of Scientific Discovery

NC State researchers discover a new genetic mutation that could “fix” another mutation in the same gene, an enzyme involved in making a plant growth hormone — after a rollercoaster of ups and downs. 
Rodolphe Barrangou, professor and co-founder of TreeCo, with genome edited poplars.

Jun 1, 2020

NC State Spin-off TreeCo To Breed a Better Forest

TreeCo, start-up company founded by by two NC State researchers, is setting out to revolutionize the forestry industry by combining insights from tree genetics with the power of genome editing. 
A bunch of sweetpotatoes

May 27, 2020

Big Data for Better Sweetpotatoes

An interdisciplinary team led by Cranos Williams is setting out on a three-year project to use artificial intelligence to make sweetpotatoes even more profitable. The team will image hundreds of thousands of sweetpotatoes to increase the percentage of sweetpotatoes grown that are USDA grade 1.