News

The systems that bring food to our tables are complex, and include everything from farming to consumption to recycling. While traditional horticultural and agronomic degrees study the plants that make up these systems, faculty members at the U of M saw a need for a degree that took a more holistic and interdisciplinary approach to food. In 2013 this led to the creation of the Food Systems major, which examines not just how to grow food, but how agricultural systems interact with the communities they serve and exist within.

Students participating in the U of M Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP), the Urban Scholars Program, and the Step-Up Program worked with labs in Horticultural Science and Entomology to study floral and pollinator diversity at established urban community gardens and newly-planted pollinator gardens in Minneapolis.

We invite you to join us for HortSci Grows on April 11, 2018. HortSci Grows is a daylong event that celebrates where Horticultural Science has been and where we’re going. This year our theme is sustainability, featuring Eric Lee-Mäder (M.Ag. 2005) as keynote speaker and recipient of the 2018 Distinguished Alumnus Award.

For the last three years, Emily Ellingson (Applied Plant Sciences, M.S.) has spent her days studying and growing a single type of tree: the eastern hemlock. Ellingson, who is advised by Stan Hokanson and Jim Bradeen, is utilizing microsatellite markers to determine genetic diversity within Minnesota’s native eastern hemlock population in the hopes of improving conservation efforts for the tree.

In 2015 the USDA estimated that only 61% of high-skilled job openings in the food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, and environment fields in the United States would be filled. To address this problem, the decision was made in 2013 to restructure curriculum from two majors—applied plant sciences and horticulture—into a single major called plant science, and add an additional food systems major.

Stefanie Dukowic-Schulze has been a researcher in Changbin Chen’s lab since 2011. Originally from southern Germany near Heidelberg, Dukowic-Schulze has published 10 papers in her time with the U of M and given presentations on her research around the world. 

When traditional growth chambers can't quite cut it, you've got to be ready to get your hands dirty. Researcher Calvin Peters engineered specialized multi-partition growth chambers that can control almost any aspect of a plant’s environment—allowing for more precise measurements and better-controlled experiments than with traditional growth chambers.

Thank you to everyone who donated to our crowd funding campaign to renovate the lobby last December. Thanks to all our alumni, staff, faculty, and even current students we raised nearly $30,000 towards the lobby. A special thank you goes to Emily Hoover, Jim Luby, and Neil Anderson, who matched the donations from the crowd funding campaign.

It costs as much as $140 million for Monsanto to release a new genetically modified crop, and from start to finish Angela Hendrickson Culler (Ph.D. Plant Biological Sciences ’07) ensures that crop is safe for people, animals, and the environment. Culler is the lead for Monsanto’s U.S. Biotech Regulatory Affairs department and was recently named one of the Saint Louis Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, which recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to their businesses and community. She manages a team of 25 people and is responsible for obtaining and maintaining global regulatory approvals for a $10 billion product portfolio.

Since its release in 1991, Honeycrisp has been harboring a secret: its parents are a mystery. Originally billed as the child of Macoun and Honeygold, researchers quickly discovered that neither of these varieties were the parents of Minnesota’s favorite apple. Now, 26 years after its introduction, graduate student Nick Howard (Applied Plant Sciences, Ph.D.) has finally uncovered Honeycrisp’s true lineage.