Jordan College students take honors at plant science conferences

(February 13, 2016) – Eight Fresno State plant science students were honored with awards for their research in oral and poster competitions the past month in annual conferences in California and Puerto Rico.

On Feb. 3 in Visalia, Jordan College students claimed five of the six poster honors at the California Plant and Soil Conference hosted by the California Chapter, American Society of Agronomy ( www.calasa.ucdavis.edu ).

Touyee Thao, Giulano Galdi and Elizabeth Mosqueda placed first, second & third in the graduate student division, and seniors Sarah Parry and Ryan Cox placed first & second in the undergraduate division.

Their poster topics follow: Thao (effective sugarbeet irrigation levels), Galdi (alfafa field response to saline irrigation), Mosqueda (automated and manual lettuce weed control/thinning methods), Cox (shade and soil moisture effects on postemergence junglerice herbicide efficacy) and Parry (weed-free periods in romaine lettuce production).

Senior May Yang also placed second in the conference’s scholarship competition and received a $500 award.

On Jan. 13-14 in Sacramento, four Fresno State students earned top-three poster competition placings in the California Weed Science Society conference ( http://www.cwss.org/conference ).

In oral competitions, Cox and Parry placed first and third among undergraduate students, respectively, and Jorge Angeles and Mosqueda placed second and third among graduate students, respectively. Angeles’ research focused on transplanted tomato response to pre-plant herbicides, and the other entries’ research was the same as their February awards.

Senior Pahoua Yang added third place in the poster presentation on glyphosate-resistant and susceptible junglerice biotypes.

On Feb. 9 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Mosqueda also competed in a poster competition at the Weed Science Society of America ( www.wssa.net ) but did not place. She attended the conference thanks to a grant from Fresno State’s Graduate Net Initiative through the U.S. Department of Education Promoting Postbaccalaureate Opportunities to Hispanic Americans program.

Altogether, four Fresno State Plant Science professors collaborated directly with the students on their posters – Dr. Sharon Benes, Dr. Florence Cassel Sharma, Dr. David Goorahoo and Dr. Anil Shrestha.

Nine other Fresno State students competed in the same California conferences, and included graduate students Sangeeta Bansal (salinity and biological nitrogen fixation in alfafa and response to applied mineral nitrogen), TariLee Frigulti (disease variables in predicting efficacy of Fusarium Race 4 resistance), Jacob Hurst (salt-tolerant cactus pear in vitro and in situ growth comparison), Annabel Rodriguez (irrigation regimes on soil movement and Fluopyram nematicidal efficacy on grape production), Eeva Sharma (Lygus lineolaris nymph cotton square feeding vs. EPG-monitored feeding), Katrina Steinhauer (glyphosate-resistant and –susceptible horseweed and hairy fleabane growth in fall and spring), Yue Wun (soil salinity and moisture stress effects on sorghum seed germination) and undergraduate students Julie Pedraza (food nanoparticles distribution and effects on Solenopsis xyloni behavior and biology) and Omar Robles (sorghum soil salinity tolerance at early growth stages).

Tou was among eight Jordan College students that also received scholarships from the Center for Irrigation Technology and the California Irrigation Institute to attend the CAII annual conference, Jan. 25-26 in Sacramento abd met with industry professionals and learned about technology advances. Other Fresno State student attendees included agricultural business junior Rigoberto Guzman, agricultural education senior Stephanie Chavez, industrial technology graduate students Arthish Bhaskar and Nikhil Shinde, and plant science junior Aldo Garcia and graduate Rodriguez and Josue Samano.

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