The Department's greatest resource is its graduate faculty, many of whom are nationally and internationally recognized for their achievements in research. 


Most graduate faculty are housed in three interconnected buildings on the Saint Paul Campus: Stakman Hall, Christensen Laboratories, and Borlaug Hall. These buildings, named for famous Minnesota plant pathologists, contain modern laboratories, offices, and state-of-the-art teaching facilities. Students benefit from the following physical resources in or near this building complex:

• The Plant Pathology Library, housed in Borlaug Hall and an official branch of the University of Minnesota Library system, contains 5,500 volumes and 100 serials dealing with plant pathology, mycology, and related fields
• Controlled environmental chambers
• High speed and ultracentrifuges
• Scanning and transmission electron microscopes, X-ray microanalysis
• Personal computer facilities for word processing, graphics, and statistical analyses and Internet access.
• Gas-liquid chromatograph-spectrometer coupled to a HP 5987 computer
• Multiple-stage mass spectrometer
• Gas chromatography microbial identification system
• Specialized light microscopes (fluorescence, polarizing, Nomarski)
• Photographic darkrooms
• Greenhouses

Students also have full access to the University library system, which contains more than four million volumes; a nucleic acid sequencing center; microscopy and imaging center; animal care facilities for antibody production; and various programs and centers including the Plant Molecular Genetics Institute and the Center for Microbial and Plant Genomics.

There are field research capabilities on the St. Paul Campus (30 acres), at the Rosemount Agricultural Experiment Station and at five additional stations located at unique sites throughout the state (Morris, Crookston, Waseca, Lamberton, Grand Rapids). In addition there are forestry and biological field stations at Lake Itasca (headwaters of the Mississippi River) and Cloquet.