Plant Science students claim
state conference medals

(Jan 23, 2015) — A trio of current Fresno State students claimed top-three honors Wednesday at the California Weed Science Society Conference in Santa Barbara.

Senior Sarah Parry (Sonora) and graduate student Elizabeth Mosqueda (Soledad) placed second and third in the oral presentation, respectively, and senior Mala To (Cambodia) placed third in the poster category.

Parry’s organic lettuce project focused on weed-free periods, economics and harvest yields. Mosqueda’s project compared automated- and hand-thinning lettuce methods. To’s project centered on the effect of light intensity on herbicides for hairy fleabane weeds.

All three students work on Fresno State Plant Science professor Dr. Anil Shrestha's research team.

Shrestha also attended the 67th annual conference and made presentations on vineyard weed management and weed populations in cotton-tomato crop rotations.

Former Fresno State master's student and Dean’s Medalist Marcelo Moretti (Brazil) added a first-place honor for his poster presenting Glyphosate and Paraquat herbicide resistance in hairy fleabane and horseweed. He was a former Fresno State Dean’s Medalist and is currently a doctoral student at UC Davis.

More information on the conference is available at the http://www.cwss.org/conference website.