As Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) of wheat and barley continues to be a global threat to food security, the University of Minnesota Department of Plant Pathology continues to play vital roles in increasing research, education, and best practice availability to American farmers, including and especially through the U.S. Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative (USWBSI).
Minnesota was represented well at the USWBSI 2022 National FHB Forum in December, starting at the core of the program organization by the Forum Organizing Committee, on which Ce Yang of UMN served, along with the careful and strategic event planning by the Initiative’s Director of Operations Michelle Bjerkness and leadership by Co-Chair and Executive Director Ruth Dill-Macky.
Beheshteh Zargaran and Rebecca Curland of the Dill-Macky Lab provided ample onsite support from registration to staffing and much in-between. Zargaran shared about the networking benefits of the conference, “I got to see some people after several years like previous graduate students or postdocs at the U of M. Meeting new people, people who I just heard their names or meeting some people who I knew only via emails, all were very good. I also was co-hosting the Nuts and Bolts Breakout Session for graduate students, post-docs, and technicians. Using years of my experience working on FHB to answer the different questions of the attendees in this session was very rewarding.”
Brian Steffenson and Rae Page presented research and enjoyed the social aspects of the conference as well. Steffenson enjoyed the opportunity to “roast long term colleague Mike Davis at his farewell,” and Page enjoyed the Tampa sun as well as the opportunity to “meet with Thomas Miedaner (University of Hohenheim, Germany), a professor collaborating with us on a side project, who also gave a fascinating talk.”
Department members Cory Hirsch, Lovepreet Singh, Mickey Drott and Mitch Elmore also attended the conference, as well as Yanhong Dong, who served as a poster competition judge. Including those in other departments, in total, 20 attendees from the University of Minnesota participated.
Interested in FHB research? Make sure to check out the virtual poster room and abstracts for a recap of the valuable updates presented. Next year’s Forum will be held December 3-5, 2023, in Cincinnati, Ohio. To learn more, sign up to be added to the USWBSI listserv for regular updates on activities.
