Browse Stories

People love the taste of sugar beets’ primary byproduct: white sugar. Soilborne cyst nematodes — parasitic, microscopic worms — enjoy the root vegetable, too, but as their sole food source. It’s an obstinate, expensive problem for farmers that researchers at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences are working to solve. In a study published in the journal PLOS Pathogens, plant nematologist Melissa Mitchum and researcher Xunliang Liu have made a significant discovery toward understanding how cyst nematodes co-opt a sugar beet’s vascular system for their own benefit.

In Associate Professor Kari Turner’s “Companion Animal Care” class, Penelope stands in front of the lecture hall, her large, brown eyes taking in her audience. Penelope, a piebald pit bull terrier mix, and her caretaker, Katlyn Davis, a fourth-year animal biosciences major, are there to tell their rescue story. Three years ago, the months-old pup was found abandoned, malnourished and covered in mange under an abandoned house.

Organic fruits and vegetables often face a higher risk of spoiling and harboring foodborne pathogens than their conventional farming counterparts. Because organic growers and packers must adhere to higher production standards and restrictions on chemical additives, University of Georgia experts are exploring alternative methods for protecting organic products and consumers through a new $3.5 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could look inside a peanut kernel and see the nutritional content hiding there? It’s possible. A device calibrated and deployed by the Peanut Innovation Lab is allowing partners to test peanut seed where they are – avoiding time-consuming and expensive off-site lab tests – to see which plants have the desired oil content. The technology is saving money and speeding up the process to develop new high-oleic lines where people need them the most.

Plant breeders can’t speed up how fast a plant grows, which limits how quickly they can develop new varieties. But knowing sooner how a plant is responding to its environment can speed up the process of selecting plants with certain traits and make that work more reliable. In earlier research, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut used hand-held sensors to evaluate peanut plants in the field, and developed vegetation indices (VIs) that could predict disease resistance, water stress tolerance, and yield better than traditional methods of evaluating plants. Now, researchers are working with drones in four African countries, using similar technology to make selections with less time and manpower, and more accuracy, and can be used in connection with digitized methods of analysis and selection decision tools.

Slipping on a shoulder-length plastic glove, fourth-year animal and dairy science student Sophie Du Pont prepared to perform a pregnancy ultrasound on a 16-month-old Jersey heifer named Woof at the University of Georgia Teaching Dairy in Winterville, Georgia. Having carefully watched Associate Professor Jillian Bohlen perform the procedure on several Holstein heifers minutes before, Du Pont maneuvered the ultrasound transducer to coax a clear digital image onto the computer screen connected to the scanning device.

Building on the strong foundation established with the first cohort of Romanian-American Foundation Fulbright Scholars at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, a second slate of scholars recently completed a four-month fellowship with UGA Cooperative Extension to gather insight and inspiration for establishing extension services in the eastern European nation.

The University of Georgia remains among the top 10 U.S. universities for study abroad participation, according to the 2024 Open Doors Report released by the Institute of International Education in partnership with the U.S. Department of State. UGA boasts the highest study abroad participation to enrollment ratio of the top 7 ranked doctoral institutions, earning the No. 7 spot in overall participation and No. 3 in short-term study abroad programs.

Everyone’s got one. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You know, that drawer, closet or room where you stash all the things that need to be out of the way. That counter that is always piled with correspondence, important papers or items saved for later. That cabinet or shed whose contents you may not be 100% sure of. Our society places a premium on what we own, and often our stuff defines us. While it is normal to outfit our homes with décor and sentimental items, sometimes what we have can interfere with how we live.

Travis Voyles has worn many hats: park tour guide, law clerk, legislative fellow, and now, secretary of natural and historic resources for the commonwealth of Virginia. He credits his rural upbringing and his experiences at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences for his success. “A lot of people don’t have the opportunity to be exposed to the agricultural community,” said Voyles, who earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental economics and management in 2011.