It has been a great year for the Texas A&M Department of Soil and Crop Sciences! As we are in the midst of our annual evaluations and preparing plans for the next year, it is good to reflect on some of the department's highlights.
We completed the academic program review of the department for the Office of the Provost at the university.
Climate-smart grants were an enormous success this year based on efforts over the past three years. Grants in general continue to rise as we implement these large projects. These projects will elevate the state, national and international standing of the department through increases in undergraduate research, graduate student and post-doctoral research associate numbers, as well as scientific and technical publications and leadership in the field, all making a difference for our producers.
We had a particularly good year in terms of national awards, including Fellows in major societies. These awards enhance competitiveness at the national level as we move forward — this year, Muthu Bagavathiannan, Ph.D., was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Award, and we were also well recognized at the College, Vice-Chancellor and Agency award levels.
The Soil and Crop Sciences’ federal report of our AgriLife Extension activities highlights the enormous impact of our breeding/testing efforts to provide adapted crops for all Texas production regions and support management technologies. It is easy to project that the total impact of these programs is more than $500 million annually.
Our successes with water programs were strong this year, which included Lone Star Healthy Streams, Healthy Lawns and Healthy Waters and the Texas Watershed Stewards programs. We had great interaction with our clientele statewide, which is supported by the ever-increasing efforts in water research on topics like the collection of water from solar panels and the use of water that has been treated following production in our oil fields. We are excited about filling a tenure-track position to advance our soil microbiome capacity as well as filling a soil/water chemist position. This should position us to grow this area of our graduate program as well as our research.
Our impact statewide on organic producers continues to grow through grants for rice, cotton and small grains.
Our continued leadership in plant breeding and genetics is recognized by new cultivars across a broad spectrum of crops including wheat, peanuts, corn, sorghum and cotton that all trace to collaboration with advances in marker-assisted selection, enhanced high throughput phenotyping and/or genomic selection techniques.
Several of our faculty have moved to administrative or partial administrative roles this past year, including:
- Dirk Hays, Ph.D., professor and director, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Weslaco.
Steve Hague, Ph.D., head, Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences at Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama.
Jane Dever, Ph.D., research director, Pee Dee Research and Education Center at Clemson University, Florence, South Carolina.
Julie Howe, Ph.D., professor and associate department head, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Bryan-College Station.
Nithya Rajan, Ph.D., professor and director, Center for Greenhouse Gas Management in Agriculture and Forestry, Bryan-College Station.
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Ambika Chandra, Ph.D., professor and assistant director, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Dallas.
Ambika Chandra, Ph.D., professor and assistant director, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Dallas.
Amir Ibrahim, Ph.D., associate director and chief scientific officer, Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Bryan-College Station.
We also want to welcome our new faculty members, including:
Brandon Gerrish, Ph.D., assistant professor and AgriLife Extension agronomist, Bryan-College Station. Gerrish specializes in small grains and oilseeds.
Kate Szerlag, Ph.D., assistant professor, Bryan-College Station. Szerlag’s specialization is in soil and water chemistry.
Ying Wang, Ph.D., assistant professor, Bryan-College Station. Wang’s specialization is in soil microbiome.
Pablo Boeri, Ph.D., assistant professor and AgriLife Extension turfgrass specialist, Dallas.
Shuyu Liu, Ph.D., professor, Bryan-College Station. Liu’s specialization is plant and wheat breeding.
Ken Lege, Ph.D., assistant professor and AgriLife Extension cotton specialist, Lubbock.
Peter Omara, Ph.D., assistant professor and AgriLife Extension specialist, Weslaco.
Grace Ogden, Ph.D., assistant professor, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Texas A&M University - Commerce.
Joseph Burke, Ph.D., assistant professor and AgriLife Extension cropping systems, agronomy and weed science specialist, Lubbock.
I want to thank everyone, including our faculty, staff, students, administration and clientele, for their tremendous support and for making this another great year!
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Nithya Rajan named director of Center for Greenhouse Gas Management in Agriculture and Forestry
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Congratulations to Nithya Rajan, Ph.D., as she has been named director of the Center for Greenhouse Gas Management in Agriculture and Forestry, Bryan-College Station — an organization established in February 2023 by Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Texas A&M University.
The center brings together expertise across Texas A&M to advance the abilities of agriculture and forestry systems to meet a new paradigm of safe, affordable food and fiber production that also strives toward a minimal carbon footprint, with a goal of net-zero emissions.
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Faculty, staff receive AgriLIfe Research Director’s Awards
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Congratulations to four individuals and one team who received this year’s Texas A&M AgriLife Research Director’s Awards in January during a ceremony dinner at The Stella Hotel in Bryan.
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Faculty, staff receive Vice Chancellor Awards in Excellence
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Congratulations to several of our faculty and staff who received the Vice Chancellor Awards in Excellence during AgriLife Connect in January.
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From moon ‘dust’ to moon ‘soil’
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A love for space exploration led Jessica Atkin, a graduate student in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, to produce the first-ever moondust-grown chickpeas. Using simulated moondust, because there’s not enough lunar regolith on Earth for experimentation, Atkin and her colleagues grew chickpeas to seed in mixtures of up to 75% moondust — a groundbreaking endeavor in several aspects.
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Natural tech for ‘dimming’ genes brings transformative potential to agriculture
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RNA interference, RNAi, is a natural gene-silencing technology that has been used in agriculture for years, but science has only recently begun exploring how it can be deliberately applied outside of the lab.
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Charting the path for industrial hemp in Texas and beyond
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Associate professor Russell Jessup, Ph.D., and his team of student researchers are working together to explore different ways to make industrial hemp a sustainable alternative crop for producers and for use in different industries.
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Young, Macik and Jakubik retire, Dever takes position with Clemson
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We want to wish senior administrative coordinator Judy Young good luck on her retirement after 35 years of service. Young retired on Feb. 29 and the department honored her with a celebration in the fourth-floor atrium of the Heep Center. We will miss you, Judy, and good luck with retirement!
In addition to Young, Edward “Chooch” Macik and Donald Jakubik retired from the department’s Farm Services on Jan. 31 after 70 years of combined service. Farm Services manages 1,000 acres of farmland located on Farm-to-Market Road 60 in Burleson County.
We also want to bid Jane Dever, Ph.D., farewell as she took a position on Feb. 29 at the Pee Dee Research and Education Center at Clemson University.
We also welcome Taylor Atkinson to our staff as our new senior administrative coordinator for David Baltensperger, Ph.D. Atkinson, a former academic advisor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, joined the department on March 11.
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The TAM 114 wheat variety remains in the top spot of varieties in Texas, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service's 2024 Wheat Variety Survey. Funded by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, the survey was conducted from responses from wheat producers statewide in December 2023 through January 2024.
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We had a great turnout with the 10th annual Plant Breeding Symposium in February. Several students presented their research both in the oral and poster sessions, and we had great keynote speakers.
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Students win presentation awards at cotton conferences
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Congratulations to five of our students who won awards at the Beltwide Cotton Conferences.
They are:
Cotton Improvement Conference Poster Competition:
Second place: Christopher Barron, a senior plant and environmental soil science major.
Third place: Hima Badavath, a master’s student majoring in plant breeding supervised by David Stelly, Ph.D.
Cotton Improvement Conference Oral Presentations:
Agronomy, Physiology and Soils Conference:
First place – Doctoral student oral presentation: Nicholas Boogades, a doctoral student co-supervised by Katie Lewis, Ph.D., and Terry Gentry, Ph.D.
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Second place – Doctoral student oral presentation: Christopher Cobos, a doctoral student co-supervised by Katie Lewis, Ph.D., and Terry Gentry, Ph.D.
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Soil Survey and Land Resource Workshop awards given to students
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Congratulations to students who won awards during the 2024 Soil Survey and Land Resource Workshop.
Oral Contest:
First place: Alejandro Atenas, a doctoral student in soil science supervised by Felipe Aburto, Ph.D.
Second place: Harrison Coker, a master’s student in soil science supervised by Julie Howe, Ph.D., and Peyton Smith, Ph.D.
Third place: Kathryn Watson, a master’s student in soil science supervised by Briana Wyatt, Ph.D.
Poster Contest:
First place: Caleb Shackelford, a master’s student in soil science supervised by Julie Howe, Ph.D., and Donald Sparks, Ph.D.
Second place: Chia-Wei Lin, a doctoral student in soil science supervised by Youjun Deng, Ph.D.
- Third place: Camilo Sanchez, a doctoral student in civil engineering.
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Grad student receives award at poster competition
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Congratulations to Kyle Parker who won third place during the Crop Science Society of America Plant and Animal Genome poster competition at the annual conference in San Diego earlier this year.
Parker is a doctoral student majoring in plant breeding and supervised by Shuyu Liu, Ph.D.
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Weed science lab undergrad researcher receives award from WSSA
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Congratulations to Ainsley Graham, an undergraduate student worker with Muthu Bagavathiannan, Ph.D., in the weed science lab, who won the John Jachetta Undergraduate Research Award from the Weed Science Society of America.
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April 8-12 | College Station
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April 15-17 | College Station
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May 9-11 | College Station
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Giving to Soil and Crop Sciences
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Student and faculty development are top priorities for Soil and Crop Sciences. Through Experiential Learning Endowments we can offer students new learning experiences outside of the classroom to help prepare them for the working world. Professorships and chairs help us bring top faculty and students into the program. Your donation can also help us continue to lead in research on specific crops and remain globally competitive as a top research university.
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About the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences
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The Department of Soil and Crop Sciences is one of the largest such departments in the nation and is preeminent throughout the world. Through our undergraduate and graduate programs, we're training future leaders, poised to advance soil and crop sciences to solve global issues in human, economic and environmental health. Our world-famous faculty have a presence in every county in Texas. Working in partnership with Texas A&M AgriLife Research and the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, their goal is to conduct soil and crop sciences research through trials and experimentation and then transfer that new knowledge to the public.
aglifesciences.tamu.edu | soilcrop.tamu.edu
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