Mollie Rappe

Sep 24, 2020

NC State Team Finds Solution for Sweetpotato Problem

A new discovery will save NC sweetpotato growers millions of dollars.

A small, red fly on a blueberry, against a black background.

Aug 31, 2020

A New IDEA: Pairing Trainees With Computational Experts During the Pandemic

How COVID-19 led to an unexpected bump in computational research.

Jun 30, 2020

Using Leaf Fungi to Improve Crop Resilience

An NC State team led by Christine Hawkes is identifying beneficial fungi found in five crops to improve disease and drought resistance.

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

Finding new uses for old tech could help farmers.

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

How one genetic mutation could “fix” another.

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

Can genome editing revolutionize forestry?

May 27, 2020

Big Data for Better Sweetpotatoes

An interdisciplinary team is setting out to use artificial intelligence to make sweetpotatoes even more profitable.

Soybean plants in a laboratory with colorful tubes in the background.

May 12, 2020

CRISPR Plants: New Non-GMO Method to Edit Plants

Researchers have created a new way to get CRISPR/Cas9 into plant cells.

Apr 29, 2020

Plant Aid: A Big-Data Project to Detect Plant Diseases Faster

An interdisciplinary team led by professor Jean Ristaino will combine small sensors with big data for faster detection of the diseases plaguing tomato fields. From a hand-held plant disease ‘sniffer’ to a cloud-based database that can alert farmers about the cause of the stress and suggest possible mitigation strategies, the project aims to detect diseases early, improving yield.

Kellie Burris in the Phytotron, inoculating a plant.

Apr 13, 2020

Securely Studying Salmonella to Advance Produce Safety

NC State’s Phytotron has a specialized greenhouse for studying pathogens.

Aerial of tractor spraying fields at Lake Wheeler farms.

Apr 1, 2020

Fertilizer of the Future

Making fertilizer more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.

Hannah Levenson, a graduate student, in a field of sunflowers, while conducting a survey of native bees throughout North Carolina.

Feb 26, 2020

The Buzz About Native Bees

Hannah Levenson, a graduate student in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, is using North Carolina’s research stations to survey native bees and study how wildflowers support native bee populations.

Dec 16, 2019

Salty Algae Leads to Sweet Success

NC State University professor Heike Sederoff started studying saltwater algae more than a decade ago as part of a project to use algae to make biofuel. This research led to a recent paper in the journal Nature and a biofuels patent application.

Anna Stepanova and Jose Alonso in a room for growing plants.

Nov 12, 2019

Genetic Engineering Tools Produce Better-Modified Plants Faster, Easier

New genetic engineering tools make recombineering large plant genes faster and easier.