Bhabesh Dutta, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension vegetable plant pathologist, has been named to the first class of Fruit + Vegetable 40 Under 40 Award winners.

The University of Georgia Research Foundation has named Wayne Parrott, UGA professor of crop and soil sciences, a Distinguished Research Professor. The award recognizes contributions to knowledge and work that promises to foster continued creativity. Parrott specializes in plant genetics and is one of the world’s leading authorities on soybean genomics and technologies that allow for the improvement of crop plants.

University of Georgia horticulturists Rachel Itle and Dario Chavez recently travelled to Australia to collect seeds from wild raspberries and peaches to bring back to the UGA Griffin campus. As scientists in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Itle and Chavez research Georgia-grown fruit.

Georgia watermelon growers who have a targeted, informed disease management plan for gummy stem blight disease could save money and lessen the environmental impact of producing this favorite summertime fruit.

More than 40 years ago, a young man from Arkansas decided to become an agriculture major because "it was the beginning of the Green Revolution, and agriculture had a bright future." Today that man, University of Georgia professor Paul Raymer, has served Georgia agriculture as a variety tester, a soybean specialist, a canola breeder and a turfgrass breeder.

Two of five Georgia Bio Awards presented last month to University of Georgia faculty were programs either in or affiliated with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES).

A $198,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-sponsored Conservation Innovation Grant will support ongoing University of Georgia research on cover crops and the effects of those crops on water quality and availability for row crop production.

The University of Georgia has received a $14 million grant from the U.S. Agency of International Development to manage the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut Research, known as the Peanut Lab, a global peanut research program that works to alleviate hunger by helping farmers in developing countries grow healthy crops. The agreement builds on UGA and USAID’s long-standing partnership on global peanut research dating to the 1980s.

Researchers have produced biofuels from corn, switchgrass and even algae, but researchers at the University of Georgia will soon study a new source of renewable biofuels: the lesser-known crop of carinata, also known as “Ethiopian mustard.”