Kansas State University

Greetings to friends, alumni, and supporters of KSU Plant Pathology!

Wow – 2020!  The year was extremely challenging. The covid19 pandemic disrupted KSU operations, our community, and our personal lives. The pandemic is ongoing, but the recent vaccine rollout provides hope for a return to more normal conditions later this year.

Despite those challenges our department had many excellent achievements. Faculty shifted gears to teach online, and students shifted gears to learn online. Our research projects kept moving along. Our extension faculty developed and delivered innovative online programs. Our office staff continued to provide excellent service under the remote work situation. I am so proud of our faculty, staff, and students. However, even more than our scientific and scholarly work I am most proud of the care and grace everyone has shown each other this past year. People were checking in on each other, adjusting work schedules to help accommodate family situations, stepping up to cover gaps, and more. We often refer to the Plant Pathology “family” and this year our “family” side was more evident than ever. I am grateful to be part of this family!

Thank you to Kelsey Andersen Onofre, Giovana Cruppe, and Kelly Staab for their hard work on this newsletter and to those who contributed content and ideas.

– Megan Kennelly, Dept Head

P.S. apologies this newsletter is late! That is part of the covid19 experience, right? A few deadlines have been shifted! The delay rests on my shoulders.

Awards, Grants, and Recognitions

Eduard Akhunov lab awarded $1 million grant to lead IWYP US Winter Wheat Breeding Innovation Hub

The USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has awarded a $1 million grant to Kansas State University (KSU) to lead the IWYP US Winter Wheat Breeding Innovation (WWBI) Hub. The IWYP US Winter Wheat Breeding Innovation (WWBI) Hub will focus on the development of discoveries for higher yielding winter wheats for the US wheat market. The Hub is structured as a public-private partnership and granted NIFA funds will be supplemented by its partners. The Hub will capitalize on the state-of-the-art infrastructure, equipment and widely recognized technical expertise of the KSU and USDA wheat scientists located  at  KSU. KSU wheat geneticist Dr. Eduard  Akhunov serves  as  the  Project  Director  and in collaboration with the  KSU  and  USDA-ARS wheat  breeding  and  genetics  teams will coordinate  the Hub activities. 

Read More: https://www.ksre.k-state.edu/news/stories/2020/06/kstate-chosen-for-winter-wheat-breeding-research-hub.html

https://iwyp.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/34/2020/06/Press-Release-IWYP-Announces-US-Winter-Wheat-Hub-FINAL.pdf

Jesse Poland awarded $1 million from USDA NIFA to mine wheat wild relatives for disease resistance, stress tolerance, and yield potential

Jesse Poland’s team received this award from the U.S.Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, through its Agriculture and Food Research Initiative to increase genetic diversity in modern wheat cultivars. The project will focus on Aegilops speltiodes and Triticum dicoccoides, two important wild relatives of wheat. The first of two projects funded will include collaborations between K-State, 2Blades Foundation, the University of Minnesota, and the John Innes Center. The second project will bring together resources within the K-State Plant Pathology department, including collaborations with Bernd Friebe and Dal-Hoe Koo, as well as with Assaf Distelfeld of the University of Haifa in Israel. 

Read more: https://www.k-state.edu/media/newsreleases/2020-06/nifa-grant-poland61920.html

Barbara Valent, Jim Stack, Allan Fritz, Giovana Cruppe, Sanzhen Liu, and other collaborators awarded $570,000 from USDA- NIFA

Barbara Valent and collaborators received the AFRI Tactical Sciences award to continue support of their wheat blast research. The project “Strategic Resource Development and Deployment to Limit the Spread of Wheat Blast” combines the use of molecular breeding, rapid detection and diagnostics, ecology, and student training. This project involves several U.S. and international institutions

K-State teams with Canadian university to apply gene editing technology for improving wheat

Kansas State University was awarded a $650,000 grant from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to establish a breeding partnership with a Canadian university to improve wheat using genome editing technology. Eduard Akhunov will lead K-State’s work on this project in collaboration with colleague Harold Trick’s research team. Akhunov said the university will join with researchers at the University of Saskatchewan in using genome editing technology to improve productivity and nutrition in the world’s wheat lines.

Read more: 

https://www.ksre.k-state.edu/news/stories/2020/08/nifa-awards-grant-to-edit-wheat-genome.html 

Bob Bowden, Mary Guttieri, and other USDA-ARS scientists awarded 2020 BRGI Gene Stewardship Award

This USDA-ARS research team was awarded the 2020 BGRI Gene Stewardship Award for work to introduce and improve resistance to stem rust, particularly Ug99. Since 2006, the team has identified over 20 new resistance genes effective against this new strain of stem rust by evaluating over 20,000 germplasm accessions. This groundbreaking work has provided markers that can be deployed in breeding programs around the world to facilitate gene stewardship. 

Read more: https://bgri.cornell.edu/2020/10/07/u-s-wheat-researchers-win-borlaug-gene-stewardship-award/

Upasana Dhakal wins Robert Nunemacher Scholarship 

Upasana Dhakal, PhD student in Chris Toomajian’s lab, was a recipient of a 2020-21 Robert Nunemacher Scholarship from the KSU College of Agriculture for exceptional students in research programs that impact production agriculture. Congratulations, Upasana! 

Afsana Noor earns Nunemacher Award

Afsana Noor, PhD student in Chris Little’s lab, received a Nunemacher Scholarship from the College of Agriculture. Congratulations Afsana!

Nar Ranabhat wins 2020 K-State International Student Scholarship and Nunemacher Award.

Nar Ranabhat, PhD student in Jessica Rupp’s lab, received the competitive 2020 International Student Scholarship from the K-State Alumni Association. This award is given to those who show exceptional academic abilities and involvement in campus activities. He also earned a Robert Nunemacher Scholarship from the College of Agriculture. Congratulations, Nar!

Elina Adhikari earns Robert Nunemacher Scholarship

Elina Adhikari, PhD student in Eduard Akhunov’s lab, earned a Robert Nunemacher Scholarship from the College of Agriculture. Congratulations Elina!

Joel Steyer earns Nolan G and Jean M McKenzie Graduate Student Fellowship

Joel Steyer, PhD student in Richard Todd’s lab, was the inaugural awardee for the Nolan G and Jean M McKenzie Graduate Student Fellowship for 2020-21.  The McKenzie Fellowship is committed to an exceptional student in a research program within the College of Agriculture. Congratulations Joel!

Paper of the Year award for Poland lab members

“Combining high-throughput phenotyping and genomic information to increase prediction and selection accuracy in wheat breeding”. This paper, co-authored by Jesse Poland, Jared Crain, and collaborators, was selected as the 2020 ‘Editor’s Citation for Excellence Award for Outstanding Service’ in the journal The Plant Genome. The paper can be found here: https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3835/plantgenome2017.05.0043

LAB HIGHLIGHTS

Dr. Bernd Friebe and collaborators receive patent 

Bernd Friebe, Jesse Poland, Tatiana Danilova, Bikram Gill, and Erick Jackson received the patent “Wheat lines, plants and grain with increased beta-glucan content” which is aimed at producing heart-healthy wheat with increased beta-glucan content. Bernd and several other collaborators have two other patents pending. 

Nature Paper published with authors from Poland lab members and Dr. Koo

Liangliang Gao, Emily Delorean, DalHoe Koo, and Jesse Poland (plus KSU Agronomy colleague Allan Fritz) were co-authors on a paper in Nature titled “Multiple wheat genomes reveal global variation in modern breeding”. The paper can be found here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2961-x

Dr. Chris Little was elected to Faculty Senate in Spring 2020

Dr. Chris Little also serves on the Faculty Affairs subcommittee. If you have questions, concerns, or issues that needed to be raised in these shared governance bodies, please contact: crlittle@ksu.edu. Thanks for your service, Dr. Little!

Dr. Richard Todd’s lab partners with Architecture for innovative project

Dr. Todd has started a new project funded by a Global Food Systems Seed Grant, collaborating with Dr. Jonathan Dessi-Olive (Architecture) and Dr. Vincent Amanor-Boadu (Agricultural Economics) to investigate fungal mycelium-based building materials.

Dr. Chris Toomajian publishes in special issue of Phytopathology

Dr. Toomajian and collaborators just published the paper “Divergence and Gene Flow Between Fusarium subglutinans and F. temperatum Isolated from Maize in Argentina”. The paper is part of a special focus issue on Population Genomic- and Phylogenomic- Enabled Advances to Increase Insight into Pathogen Biology and Epidemiology.  Please check the online version at https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/PHYTO-09-20-0434-FI. 

Personnel changes

Megan Kennelly appointed Department Head 

Megan Kennelly was appointed to be the Department Head in August by Dean Ernie Minton. Prior to being named Department Head she was the Interim Department Head beginning in December 2018. There is a full story about the appointment in this KSU press release: https://www.ksre.k-state.edu/news/stories/2020/08/kennelly-named-department-head-for-plant-pathology.html

New Faces

One of my favorite things about my job is getting to meet and onboard our new employees. We added a few new Graduate Research Assistants and essential employees this semester. It’s my honor to get to introduce them to you. It’s certainly an odd time to start something new, so feel free to help me welcome them by shooting these new faces an email to introduce yourself as well. – Kelly Staab

Graduate Research Assistants

Nathan Smith joined us in August as a new Graduate Research Assistant (MS) with Chris Little. Nathan is originally from Holton, Kansas and his current project aims to identify factors that influence lodging in sorghum and their interactions with stem rot pathogens. Outside of his research, he enjoys reading, running, and biking. His favorite holiday is Fourth of July because “there’s fireworks, there’s barbeque, and it’s summertime. What more could you want?”

David Rowe is a new Graduate Research Assistant (PhD) in Genetics with David Cook (David under David, easy-peasy to remember!). Rowe is from Clarksville, Maryland. At the University of Maryland, he worked in two different labs researching drought tolerance in tomato plants and nitrogen storage in poplar trees. Prior to that, he spent two summers at the USDA National Fungal Herbarium examining historic specimens of smut fungi parasitizing poaceous hosts. His current hobbies include hiking, cooking, making bread and cheese from scratch, and an interest to get more into gardening. I bet there’s some people around here who could help with that! His favorite holiday tradition is dressing up as a headless person on Halloween and handing out candy. 

Heather Forster is also pursuing her PhD in Genetics and is currently on a lab rotation with Richard Todd. She joins us from Wichita, Kansas and has an MS in Biology from Wichita State University, an MS in Biology from Emporia State University, and a BA in Environmental Science from University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her previous research focused on using RNA interference to suppress the growth of a phytopathogenic fungus. She found that knocking down expression of even a single cell wall synthesizing enzyme negatively impacted both the magnitude and quality of fungal growth. She is currently working on utilization of N-acetylglucosamine – an important component of cell walls and chitin, and a carbon and nitrogen source for the fungus Aspergillus nidulans. Her interests include anime, learning to code, music, and fitness. A favorite holiday tradition is hunting for chocolate eggs on Easter, even now, as an adult. She also enjoys cooking feasts on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  

Full-Time Staff

The Akhunov lab welcomed Jason Zurn as a new Post-Doc. From Horace, North Dakota, Zurn earned his B.S. in Biotechnology, a graduate

certificate in statistics, and his PhD in Plant Pathology from North Dakota State University. He was recently employed as a research geneticist/post-doc research associate with the USDA-ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository (NCGR) in Corvallis, Oregon. At the USDA-ARS NCGR, he worked to identify QTLs associated with disease resistance and horticultural quality traits and develop diagnostic tests for DNA-informed breeding for strawberries, blackberries, roses, and pears. He also developed DNA fingerprinting assays and characterized the genotypic diversity of the U.S. pear, strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry germplasm collections. His new role with the Akhunov lab will focus on characterizing NB-LBR genes in a diverse set of wheat germplasm and identifying and characterizing wheat rust resistance genes. Outside of work, he enjoys archery, fishing, and hunting upland birds. His favorite holiday is Thanksgiving because of all the delicious foods. 

Alyssa Dunnivan transitioned from a student worker to a Research Technician role in the Akhunov lab. Originally from Rantoul, Kansas, she just completed her Bachelor’s degree in Horticulture Science with a Plant Pathology minor. Her current work involves helping manage the lab and coordinate student employees. Outside of work, she enjoys true crime documentaries and podcasts, watching scary videos, and exploring the outdoors with her dog, Aries. Her favorite holiday is Christmas, because everything is a bit cheerier and everyone is a bit more generous and courteous.

Rodrigo Borba Onofre started as a Post-Doc with Dr. Kennelly. He will be working on row crop disease management and has hit the ground running

already by helping Judy O’Mara with the Crop Disease course last semester. Rodrigo is from Brazil, Conceição da Aparecida – Minas Gerais State. He has his PhD in Plant Pathology from the University of Florida and a BS in Agronomic Engineering from the Federal University of Vicosa-Brazil. His PhD work was with the management and epidemiology of strawberry powdery mildew under the guidance of Dr. Natalia Peres. His research focused on the development of practical alternative strategies to single-site fungicides to control powdery mildew. One of the projects involved night-time UV-C light application, using a tractor-drawn apparatus and robots which suppressed powdery mildew as well or better than fungicide treatments. His current hobbies include running, biking, and training his German shorthaired pointer puppy, Mabel. Christmas is his favorite holiday because he loves to see the lights and spend time with his family.

Maryam Rastegar joined us from Shiraz, Iran and is working as a post-doc for Dr. Shahideh Nouri. Maryam earned her M.S. and PhD from Shiraz University in Plant Pathology. During her PhD, she worked at the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA) in France on virus vector interaction. Then worked as a faculty member in the Iranian Research Institute for plant Protection. In her current role, she works on research with plant and insect viruses, particularly virus vector interactions. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends in nature and traveling. Her favorite holiday tradition is eating traditional Persian foods for Persian’s new year dinner. I think she’s a total rockstar for starting life in a new country during a pandemic. 

The Poland Lab welcomed Chaney Courtney as a Computational Scientist. Originally from the Kansas City area, Chaney just completed his PhD in computer science with K-State. He has experience working on multiple NSF grants focusing on high-throughput phenotyping and was previously a Graduate Research Assistant creating novel deep learning algorithms and applying real-time systems to mobile devices. His hobbies include developing Android applications, computer vision projects, and kayaking. 

Graduations

Congratulations! to our fall graduates

Bliss Betzen

• Degree: MS Genetics
• Major Professor: Eduard Akhunov
• Thesis: The effect of the allelic diversity in AcrSr35 on Sr350based resistance in wheat

Kseniya Chumachenko

• Degree: M.S. Plant Pathology
• Major Professor: James Stack
• Thesis Simple sequence repeat analysis and qualitative pathway analysis of Rathayibacter toxicus

Elina Adhikari

• Degree: PhD Genetics
• Major Professor: Eduard Akhunov
• Dissertation: Genetic basis of eco-geographic adaptation in wild relatives for wheat improvement

Megan Calvert

• Degree: PhD Genetics
• Major Professor: Jesse Poland
• Dissertation: Assessment and implementation of new breeding methods in the Kansas State winter wheat breeding program

Spring greetings to friends, alumni, and supporters of KSU Plant Pathology!

It was a long winter and it continues to be a long, muddy spring. However, in between the rains we’ve enjoyed redbuds, flowering crabapples, tulips, irises and peonies popping all over Manhattan. Finals are done, our Little Apple is in summer mode, and it’s time to share our news from spring semester 2019.

Awards

American Phytopathological Society Fellow: Dr. James Stack

The American Phytopathological Society (APS) grants the title of Fellow in recognition of distinguished contributions to plant pathology or to APS for research, teaching, administration, professional and public service, and/or extension and outreach.

Dr. Stack is the director of the Great Plains Plant Diagnostic Network (GPDN), and his leadership and vision shaped the network from the start. Dr. Stack’s efforts have helped stabilize the GPDN and National Plant Diagnostic Network. He is also an internationally recognized leader in the field of plant biosecurity, with numerous international and domestic speaking invitations. His research focuses on important plant biosecurity problems which includes high consequence plant pathogens from around the world, and he has had collaborations with Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Bolivia and Israel. Dr. Stack’s lab focuses on genome-informed diagnostics, epidemiology, and ecology of toxigenic fungi and bacteria. Currently, he has ongoing research on the Select Agent Rathayibacter toxicus. In addition, he is a key member of the wheat blast research team. Dr. Stack also values training and getting students and professionals inspired in the field of biosecurity, so he created a course named “Plant Biosecurity in Theory and Practice” which is held at the Biosecurity Research Institute for 5 days and brings together on average more than 30 participants from many countries each year.

(More information available at https://www.apsnet.org/members/give-awards/awards/Pages/James-Stack-.aspx)

2018 Employee of the Year: Diana Pavlisko

This spring, Diana received one of the two Employee of the Year awards from the College of Agriculture for the year of 2018. She has been with the Plant Pathology department for 20 years and has played a very important and supportive role for all the students, researchers, and faculty. Diana was the Human Capital Assistant for the department and handled the department’s personnel recruitments, onboarding new hires, all HR paperwork,

work eligibility for visa holders, Extension Diagnostic Lab support, department deposits, and ordering office supplies. These were big responsibilities that affected us all in some form, but she always went above and beyond to do much more than her job description, making her a model employee of the plant pathology department. Diana recently moved on to take an opportunity working at KSU Counseling Services. We miss her but wish her the best of luck in her new employment.

April 2019 Graduate Student Council Travel Grant award: Kseniya Chumachenko

This travel grant was given to Kseniya Chumachenko to attend the National Diagnostic Network Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana. This meeting consisted of several diagnostic workshops, research presentations, and networking with many plant diagnosticians, university, government, and industry affiliates. Kseniya presented a poster there, titled “Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) as markers for Rathayibacter toxicus evolutionary history”.

2019 Plant Pathology 3-Minute Thesis Award winners:

First place (two-way tie)

• Guifang Lin, presentation titled “Lr42, A Wheat Leaf Rust Resistance Gene”
• Jun Huang, presentation titled “Investigating transcriptional regulation of effectors in Magnaporthe oryzae”

Second place

• Afsana Noor, presentation titled “Understanding physiological and molecular aspects of charcoal rot resistance mechanism in sorghum and soybean”

2019 The Kansas Academy of Science (KAS) Graduate Research Grant Award: Afsana Noor

This award was established to “foster the scientific research endeavors of student members of the KAS”, and grants funds that can be used to support of the students’ research. Afsana received the competitive grant of $1,500 for PhD students for her work on the detection of the cellular responses of sorghum and soybean that underlie host senescence induced by the nectrophic fungus Macrophomina phaseolina. The title of her grant proposal was “Understanding physiological and molecular aspects of charcoal rot resistance mechanism in sorghum and soybean”.

(information from http://www.kansasacademyscience.org/research-grants.html)

Lifetime achievement award

Barbara Valent recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Rice Blast Disease, presented by the international rice blast community at the 8^th International Rice Blast Conference, May 27-31, Chengdu, Sichuan, China. Congratulations to Barbara on her career-long efforts to understand this globally-important plant disease. Dr. Valent joined the Department of Plant Pathology at Kansas State University in 2001 as a Professor and was recognized as a University Distinguished Professor in 2002. Dr. Valent’s research focuses on diseases of rice and wheat caused by related pathotypes (strains) of the plant pathogenic fungus Magnaporthe oryzae.  These diseases of wheat and rice are called “blast” and they pose threats to key crops worldwide, including Kansas.  Her work has important implications for the practical world of real-time plant breeding and deployment of rice and wheat varieties around the world. Her discoveries about intricate, molecule-to-molecule interactions of fungus and plant have clarified the disease process, opening the door to future targets for control by fungicides or resistant varieties. She has published more than 120 papers that have garnered over 8,000 citations. Prior recognition includes being named a Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and recipient of the Noel T. Keen Award for Research Excellence in Molecular Plant Pathology from the American Phytopathological Society among other achievements.

Patent Recognition

Jessica Rupp, Harold Trick, and John Fellers were recognized by the KSU Research Foundation for their patent, “Plant germplasm resistant to RNA viruses.”

A busy semester of visiting seminar speakers

The Plant Pathology Department hosted a number of impressive academics and renowned scientists during our spring seminar series.

Dr. Kevin Folta, professor at University of Florida who also hosts the famous Podcast “Talking Biotech Podcast – Evidence-Based Discussion with Dr. Kevin Folta” visited in March. Our own graduate student, Bliss Betzen, was included for one of his episodes.

Dr. Segenet Kelemu was the 2019 College of Agriculture Alumni Fellow. She delivered a seminar, met students and faculty across the college, and was recognized at a university-wide awards reception. Dr. Kelemu earned her PhD here at KSU in Plant Pathology. She is the director of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Kenya. You can read more about Dr. Kelemu’s inspiring career on the KSU Alumni Association page. One of our graduate students, Immaculate Wanjuki, worked under Dr. Kelemu before coming to Kansas State.

Other speakers in the department seminar series included Dr. Carlos Guzman from CIMMYT, Dr. Josh Herr from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Dr. Edward Buckler from USDA-ARS, Dr. Jacob Washburn from Cornell University, and Dr. Andrew Friskop from North Dakota State University.

Representing the department near and far

Throughout the semester faculty, staff, and students have had the opportunity to represent our department through attending various training sessions and conferences.

In January the Plant and Animal Genome Conference 2019: PAG XXVII was held in San Diego, CA where there were over 130 exhibits, 150 workshops, 1100 posters, and 1800 abstracts. There were also over 3000 people in attendance, of those 3000, there was a nice representation from our group. Of our faculty, Jesse Poland was a session organizer, Barbara Valent was a plenary speaker, and Eduard Akhunov, Alina Akhunova, Sanzhen Liu, and Bikram Gill were speakers. Of our graduate students, Paula Silva, Emily Delorean, Megan Calvert, and Shichen Zhang all presented posters. Of our post-docs, Trevor Rife was a speaker, and Sandesh Shrestha and Jared Crain both presented posters. (https://www.intlpag.org/2019/)

Within the same week as the PAG meeting in San Diego, the week-long Alliance for Science-Science Communication Training was held. Elina Adhikari and Bliss Betzen attended this training, which was mostly focused around communicating the science of gene editing and CRISPR technologies with consumers. (https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu)

March was a very busy month, starting with the 16th International Aspergillus Meeting (Asperfest16) that graduate students Joel Steyer and Cameron Hunter, and faculty Dr. Richard Todd attended in Pacific Grove, CA. Dr. Todd also served as the Local Organizer and Chair. At the Asperfest meeting, Dr. Todd was elected to a third 3-year term on the Aspergillus Genomes Research Policy Committee and was elected Chair of the Asperfest17 meeting in Rome in 2020.

Following Asperfest, the 30th Fungal Genetics Conference was held and participants gathered to present their recent findings.  The Plant Pathology department was very well represented by our faculty members: Richard Todd, Chris Toomajian, David Cook, John Leslie, and Barbara Valent, who was a speaker, as well as post-doc Wei Zhang. Graduate students Joel Steyer, Cameron Hunter, and Jun Huang all presented posters at this conference as well. (http://conferences.genetics-gsa.org/fungal/2019/index)

Our sister state to the north hosted the Nebraska Plant Science Symposium in March which was titled “Training 21st Century Plant Breeders in the “Omics” Era.” A handful of Plant Pathology graduate students in the Plant Breeding and Genetics Club went to this symposium included Paula Silva, Emily Delorean, Elina Adhikari and post-doc Sandesh Shrestha. (https://agronomy.unl.edu/plant-breeding-symposium)

It was Kansas State University’s turn to host SciComm 2019 which was organized by the Kansas Science Communication Initiative and the Sunset Zoo. This conference was centered around finding the right form of science communication techniques for you. Faculty such as Marty Draper represented the Plant Pathology department alongside graduate students: Bliss Betzen, who was a speaker, Joel Steyer, Dylan Mangel, and Nar Ranabhat. (https://www.k-state.edu/scicomm/conference2019/). The theme

of the conference was to better encourage engaging and effective science communication by learning how to connect with the broader public. The keynote speakers included Dr. Danielle Lee, an out

reach scientist who studies animal behavior and behavioral ecology, and Dr. Kevin Folta, chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida and host of the Talking Biotech Podcast. Bliss Betzen, a graduate student in the Plant Pathology Department, presented on ‘Crash Course Workshop: Scientific Symposium’ in which she outlined her experience in helping to plan the 4th Biennial Plant Breeding and Genetics Symposium at KSU. The next SciComm conference will be at the

University of Nebraska-Lincoln in March 2020.

We wrapped up March with the KSU GRAD Forum held at the Student Union where graduate students: Elina Adhikari, Paula Silva, Joel Steyer, and Chandler Day all presented posters about their research. (https://www.k-state.edu/grad/students/studentcouncil/research-forums/)

 The Plant Breeding and Genetics Club started April off with a bang with their biennial symposium. This year, the officer team consisting partly of Plant Pathology graduate students: Emily Delorean, Paula

Silva, Giovanna Cruppe, Elina Adhikari, and Bliss Betzen;

were driven to showcase the

advancements of women in agriculture. The symposium was titled “A New Era for the Green Revolution: Celebrating Women in Agriculture,” where the program set was entirely made up of women in all agricultural sectors. Mary Guttieri of the USDA was a speaker for this event and a friend of the KSU Plant Pathology department. Our department had an immeasurable amount of representation and provided a great amount of support to the officer team (https://ww

w.pbgatkstate.com).

Presenters included Dr. Amanda Hulse-Kemp, a computational biologist from USDA; Dr. Mary Guttieri, a research geneticist from USDA at KSU; Dr. Natalia de Leon, a professor at University of Wisconsin; Dr. Maria Salas Fernandez, an associate professor at Iowa State University; and Dr. Ruth Wagner, a Genome and Marker Design Platform lead at Bayer Crop Sciences. In addition to the amazing woman researchers hosted, two of our Plant Pathology students, graduate student Joel Steyer and undergraduate student Cameron Amos from Dr. Jesse Poland’s lab won Excellence in Research Poster Presentation at the symposium.

Later in March the National Plant Diagnostic Network (NPDN) took place in Indianapolis, IA where plant diagnosticians, extension specialists, and policymakers to discuss plant biosecurity. We had a great representation from the Plant Pathology department for this conference. Christian Webb, Assistant Director: Great Plains Diagnostic Network, Judy O’Mara, Diagnostician, and Dr. Jim Stack, Professor, Director: Great Plains Diagnostic Network are all faculty members who attended. Alongside faculty, Dr. Jarred Yasuhara-Bell, post-doc, and graduate students, Kseniya Chumachenko, Javier Kiyuna, Victoria Cast, and Chandler Day. (https://www.npdn.org/2019_national_meeting)

To wrap up the semester the Midwest Bioinformatics Conference took place in Kansas City, MO. This conference is in place to bring together bioinformaticians from industry and academics to collaborate and exchange techniques. Graduate student, Joel Steyer attended this conference and presented a poster. (http://kcbioinformatics.org/conference/)

Plant Pathology Graduate Student Club Activities

The Plant Pathology Graduate Student Club (PPGSC) has been busy this semester with hosting events and fundraisers. Each year, PPGSC coordinates and runs the department’s b

ooths at Kansas State University Open House. It was no different this year and it was amazing for the level of outreach and involvement by the students and faculty. Attendees had the chance to win some plants that the students had grown after answering a few questions about plant pathology in Kansas. In addition to public engagement at Open House, the PPGSC officer team participated in two additional plant sales, one at Kansas State’s spring Farmer’s Market and one in Throckmorton Hall on May Day.

Over the course of the three events, the club raised over $300 and engaged with hundreds of people on the topic of plants and plant pathology.

Did we miss any conference, training, or workshop that you attended? Please let us know! We love to share opportunities!

Research updates

It’s been a busy spring for publications. Here are just a few recent examples:

Effector Gene Reshuffling Involves Dispensable Mini-chromosomes in the Wheat Blast Fungus

The urgency of protecting the world’s wheat crops from one of the most devastating crop diseases, wheat blast, led to an exciting project that utilized cutting-edge genome approaches. A research team led by Drs. Sanzhen Liu and Barbara Valent constructed a high-resolution map for the genome of the wheat blast pathogen. The map covers core chromosomes as well as a dispensable mini-chromosome. Dynamic genetic content in mini-chromosomes implied the frequent crosstalk between mini-chromosomes and core chromosomes. The involvement of the pathogenicity-associated genes in the crosstalk suggests the important role of the mini-chromosome in pathogen adaptation. The results provide a new mechanism to understand fast-evolving wheat blast pathogens and their interactions with wheat varieties, and thus would provide genetic information to develop effective strategies to combat wheat blast. The research team included Dr. David Cook, Dr. Zhao Peng, Dr. Ely Oliveira Garcia, Guifang Lin, and Melinda Dalby from our department. The paper is available as a pre-print in biorxiv. (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/359455v1)

Exome sequencing highlights the role of wild-relative introgression in shaping the adaptive landscape of the wheat genome

Dr. Eduard Akhunov’s group along with wheat geneticists from the US Wheat CAP project and Agriculture Victoria (Australia) published a paper in Nature Genetics. This collaborative project also includes scientists from the University of Saskatchewan (Canada) and University of Minnesota (USA). They performed a detailed analyses of genetic diversity in genetically diverse populations of wheat cultivars and landraces, and wild and domesticated tetraploid wheat. They used exome capture method to re-sequence and catalog variation in the gene coding regions of the wheat genome in nearly 1000 wheat accessions (http://wheatgenomics.plantpath.ksu.edu/1000EC/). More than seven million differences in genetic code which can can affect the function of genes that control various traits in wheat adaptation to new growth conditions were identified. Researchers found that gene flow from the wild ancestor reduced the deleterious mutation burden, and played an important role in the wheat’s ability to adapt to new climatic conditions. The findings in this paper will be very important in targeted deployment of wild relative diversity in the breeding programs for wheat improvement. The project is a part of NIFA-International Wheat Yield Partnership funded by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grants 2017-67007-25939 (Wheat-CAP) and 2016-67013-24473 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and grants from Kansas Wheat Commission and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Corteva Agriscience, Agriculture Division of DowDuPont provided financial support through collaboration with Agriculture Victoria Services enabling the development of the SNP dataset and technologies.

Welcome new office staff

The main office is the hub of many office activities. We welcome two new people to this key piece of our department:

Welcome Kelly Staab

We are thrilled to have Kelly Staab as the newest addition to our office staff. Kelly is familiar with the K-State family, as she was previously part of KSRE Extension Operations. Kelly’s bright smile warms the front office, so stop by to introduce yourself and to get to know her better.

Welcome Adriana Hurst

We are excited to have Adriana Hurst, our new student worker, as a member of our office personnel. She joined the plant pathology team this May all the way from Charlottesville, Virginia. Adriana is a sophomore majoring in journalism with minor in German and is a member of the K-State forensics team. Please help us welcome Adriana by stopping by the office and introducing yourself.

The articles above were written by Joel Steyer, Bliss Betzen, Chandler Day, Elina Adhikari, and Kseniya Chumachenko.

In Memory

In closing, the department is sad to report on the passing of two outstanding colleagues.

Larry Clafin

Larry Claflin, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Plant Pathology at Kansas State University, passed away on February 3, 2019 after a long, hard fought battle with cancer and heart disease. He was 78 years old.

Larry was born July 3, 1940 to Bernice Lucille Mitchell Claflin and Avery Eugene Claflin. He leaves his wife, Dixie Campbell Claflin, son, Michael Eugene Claflin, and daughter, Kimberly Suzanne Claflin, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Larry grew up on the family farm near Wakita, OK. He went on to receive his B.S in Biology/Chemistry from Northwestern Oklahoma State University, his M.S. in Botany from East Texas State University, and his Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from Kansas State University under the direction of Don Stuteville.

Larry’s first position was as an Extension Plant Pathologist at Montana State University where he also served as the director of the Montana Potato Improvement Association. He joined the faculty at Kansas State University in 1975 as an Extension Specialist. He later gave up his Extension responsibilities for a research/teaching appointment. From 1979 to 1982 he served as head of the department. For many years Larry taught the Plant Pathogenic Bacteria class, where students were required to identify unknown cultures of bacteria and then present their results formally, as if at the APS annual meeting. In 1984-85, Larry spent a sabbatical leave in the laboratory of Anne Vidaver at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he developed MXP media, a semi-selective medium for Xanthomonas campestris pv. phaseoli. He retired from the department in 2006. During his career, he considered it a very rewarding experience to serve as the Major Professor for over 30 M.S. and Ph.D. students. Many of these were foreign students, whom he and Dixie took into their home, forming lasting friendships. Larry’s international experience was extensive. Over the years he worked in 11 countries spread over four continents. Bacterial diseases of corn and sorghum were his primary emphases.

Larry had an extensive service record. He chaired the International Sorghum and Millet (INTSORMIL) Technical Committee and was the Plant Pathology Section Chair for the Sorghum Improvement Conference of North America (SICNA). Larry was also a member of the NCR-25 Corn and Sorghum Diseases Committee. His service to APS included Associate Editor of Plant Disease, the Office of International Programs (OIP), and as a member of the Regulatory Work and Foreign Plant Diseases, the Plant Disease Losses, and the Standardization of Common Names for Plant Diseases Committees.

He received the Outstanding Education Award from Northwestern OSU in 1992 and the Commitment to Plant Disease Knowledge Award from Kansas State’s Hale Library in 2006 for his donation of over 700 images that are now housed in the Larry Claflin Plant Disease Image Collection.

Larry was famous for presiding over mid-morning coffee breaks in his lab where discussions routinely spanned science, politics, religion and sports. Larry was also known by friends and relatives as “the man with the green thumb,” for he could make anything grow. He once commented that he did not wish flowers at his funeral, because he would rather they continue to grow. After retirement, he moved to Anthony, KS to be closer to his home farm in Wakita. While in Anthony, Larry entered politics serving on the city commission and as mayor. In his last years, he came home to his farm near Wakita where he developed a very successful business of growing irrigated alfalfa until he could no longer continue because of ill health.

Merle Eversmeyer

Merle Eversmeyer, age 83, died on Monday February 4, 2019 at the Ascension-Via Christi Hospital, Manhattan, Kansas.

He was born on December 9, 1935 in Waterville, Kansas the son of Gideon F. and Susie E. (Kintigh) Eversmeyer. On March 14, 1982, he was united in marriage to Beverly Ringey.

Merle earned a B.S in Agronomy and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Plant Pathology all from Kansas State University. Following completion of his Ph.D. in 1971, he joined the USDA-ARS’s Plant Science and Entomology Research Unit, which was housed within the Kansas State Department of Plant Pathology as the Cereal Rust Epidemiology Project Leader. In 1972, he became the Research Leader for the Plant Science and Entomology Research Unit, a position he held until his retirement in 2002. He also held a faculty appointment as an adjunct associate professor within the Kansas State Department of Plant Pathology.

Merle specialized in the epidemiology and ecology of wheat diseases, particularly leaf rust. He spent much time surveying for leaf rust each spring to determine if it had overwintered in Kansas (which always resulted in the most severe epidemics) and then entering the data for use in simulation models. His career was spent developing and improving these models for the improved forecasting of rust epidemics and yield losses. He was also actively involved in screening wheat germplasm for resistance to wheat rust and searching for new sources of resistance.

Merle enjoyed gardening, planting flowers and bringing flowers home to Beverly. He also loved Christmas and was known for starting the Christmas music in July and having the house fully decorated. He also loved watching the K-State Wildcats, the Kansas City Royals and the Kansas City Chiefs. He and Beverly traveled extensively through his work, traveling to over 26 different countries.

He was a lifelong member of the United Methodist Church and together, he and Beverly led an adult singles group that traveled all over; at one time they had 85 members.

Survivors include his wife: Beverly of the home; a brother: Harold Eversmeyer and his wife Ruth of Nashville along with many nieces, nephews, other family members and many friends.

Memorial tributes prepared by Doug Jardine

Greetings to friends, alumni, and supporters of KSU Plant Pathology

Winter is a good time to reflect on the hard work, perseverance, and growth throughout the year. With that idea of reflection, we at the Department of Plant Pathology welcome you to this first edition of the Departmental E-newsletter. This E-newsletter will be published twice a year at the end of each semester and will highlight the people and the new and exciting events of our department. 

Plant Pathology by the Numbers –  Snapshot of 2018

• Graduate Students – 33
• Post Doctoral Researchers – 15
• Visiting Scientists – 5
• Publications – 122
  
• Diagnostic lab samples – >1,000
• Competitive grants – $6.9 Million
  
• Total external funding  – $7.4 million
  

Welcome To Our Newest Faculty

Lucky Mehra

Dr. Mehra received his B.S.  in Plant Protection from Punjab Agricultural University in Punjab India, Ph.D. his M.S. in Plant Pathology from the University of Georgia and his Ph.D in Plant Pathology with a minor in Statistics from North Carolina State University, Raleigh. He has a 100% teaching appointment, teaching Principles of Plant Pathology that is offered every spring semester and is the biggest course offered in terms of student enrollment. This is a fundamental course in plant pathology that introduces students to different types of plant pathogens and to cause, effect, and management of plant diseases. In addition to teaching, he coordinates undergraduate minor in plant pathology, and serve as a senior editor on American Phytopathological Society education center. Dr. Mehra collaborates with colleagues in the department and across the US in researching and analyzing quantitative aspects of plant diseases. Current projects are focused on epidemiology of citrus greening, angular leaf spot of strawberry, white mold of soybean, and Septoria nodorum blotch of wheat

David Cook

Dr. Cook grew up in Ohio and received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Crop Soil Environmental science in 2005 and 2008, in Virginia Tech University. For his Master’s program, he worked in a soybean breeding program where he looked at genotype by environment effects on soybean traits important for Natto production. Dr. Cook went on to do his PhD at the Department of Plant pathology in University of Wisconsin-Madison, where his thesis was on soybean-soybean cyst nematode interactions and understanding host defense. Then, for three years from 2013-2016, he moved to Netherlands to be a postdoc at Wageningen University. There, he researched the soil borne fungal pathogen, Verticillium dahliae, focusing on molecular genetics and genomics related to fungal virulence on tomato and Arabidopsis. Dr. Cook joined K-State in January 2017 as an associate professor to continue studying molecular plant-microbe interactions. His lab currently has two broad themes: 1) molecular control of transcription and chromatin dynamics in fungal plant pathogens; 2) developing and deploying RNA-targeting CRISPR in plants. His lab has received support from federal funding  through the USDA Plant Biotic Interactions Program, and through a Young Faculty Award through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He received further support for the RNA-targeting project from the Joint Genome Institute (JGI). He is also teaching the proposal seminar course for graduate students in the Spring semester and Molecular plant-microbe interactions course in the Fall of odd years. Dr. Cook’s lab has grown a lot since he joined, and now includes three postdocs, Wenguang Zheng, Wei Zhang, and Veerendra Sharma, two PhD students, Jun Huang and Jameka Jefferson, and two undergraduates, Shumin Li and Brett Plemons. When not working, Dr. Cook enjoys spending time with his wife and 3 children, coaching their basketball team, and being outdoors.

Jessica Rupp

Dr. Rupp has been able to call Kansas home for the majority of her life. Born and raised in Pittsburg, Kansas, she attended Pittsburg State University where she received a dual B.S. in biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology. While at Pitt State, she joined a lab working on transgenic tomato, which ultimately led her to apply to work in Dr. Harold Trick’s plant transformation lab. She become a graduate student co-advised by Dr. Trick and Dr. John Fellers, working on wheat streak mosaic virus. After her PhD, Dr. Rupp accepted a faculty position at Montana State University, where she worked as a state Extension specialist, working on potatoes, sugar beets, and pulse crops. Based on her work in Montana, she and research assistant professor Dr. Myron Bruce published a book chapter on potato transformation. Since the summer 2018, Dr. Rupp is the assistant professor of Applied Wheat Pathology and is focused on several diseases affecting wheat. These include many important Kansas wheat issues such as wheat streak mosaic complex, Fusarium Head blight, the leaf spot complex, root rots, and more. She is offering a new class starting in fall 2019, Integrated Strategies of Pant Disease Management, which will be aimed mostly at upper level agronomy but also plant pathology students who wish to gain practical field experience. Dr. Bruce and two graduate students, Dylan Mangel and Nar Ranabhat, also moved from Montana to stay in her lab. When not at work, Dr. Rupp likes running with her Hungarian vizsla dog named Asta and watching her daughter’s athletic activities as she competes for Wamego Middle School and Northeast Kansas Track Club. 

Shahideh Nouri

Dr. Nouri is originally from Iran and completed her B.S. and M.S. degrees in plant protection and plant pathology, respectively, from Isfahan University of Technology in Iran. For her M.S. project, she studied the natural populations of Ralstonia solanacearum, the causal agent of bacterial wilt of plants in the tomato/potato family.  Certain strains of this bacterium are select agents in the U.S. She identified R. solanacearum phylotype II/biovar 2T in potato fields in Iran and reported the existence of this group outside South America for the first time. Soon after, Dr. Nouri came to the U.S. in 2007 to join a Ph.D. program at the Plant Pathology department in the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For her dissertation, she researched molecular-based phylogenetics of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) and elucidated possible mechanisms that gave rise to the variation of CMV isolates in the U.S. Afterwards, she joined Bryce Falk’s research group at University of California -Davis and investigated a novel strategy to manipulate insect-specific viruses (ISV) to target the Asian citrus psyllid (D. citri), the most important recent invasive insect vector of a plant pathogen in the U.S. It vectors the bacterial plant pathogen (Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus) that causes a citrus greening disease. Dr. Nouri discovered a diverse array of novel viruses (virome) in global natural populations of D. citri using small RNA and transcriptome sequencing. The potential use of these new viruses as biological agents is under investigation. Dr. Nouri joined our department in June 2018 and plans to continue studying ISVs of D. citri. In addition, her research will include the wheat virome and genetic variation of natural populations of Wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV) in wheat, WSMV-wheat curl mite interactions, and Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV)-aphid microbiome interactions. Dr. Nouri will also be teaching Plant Virology at the graduate level in the fall 2019. Dr. Nouri`s hobbies/interests outside of work include walking, hiking, and traveling.

Best Wishes to Retiring Faculty

Along with welcoming new faculty we had two faculty retire recently and we thank them for their many contributions to the department.

Bikram Gill – University Distinguished Professor Emeritus 

Bikram Gill retired from the Department of Plant Pathology in July,following 39 years of service to K- State and the KSU College of Agriculture. A native of the Punjab region of India, Bikram came to the US in 1968 to attend college. In 1977, he arrived at K-State to lead a new wheat cytogenetics program. By 1984, his impact was extended when he established the Wheat Genetics Resource Center (WGRC) at Kansas State University. The WGRC brought together plant pathologists, entomologists, breeders, and USDA personnel with a vision of germplasm conservation and utilization for crop improvement for sustainable production by broadening the crop genetic base; creating and promoting the free exchange of materials, technology, and new knowledge in genetics and biotechnology among the world’s public and private organizations.  State-of-the-art laboratories, greenhouses, and field plot facilities helped establish the WGRC. Interaction with Bikram on a day-to-day basis will be missed, but he will still be around, collaborating with colleagues and stimulating new ideas. Bikram can still be reached at his K-State e-mail, bsgill@ksu.edu. We’re sure he would love to hear from past colleagues!

Kevin McCluskey – Research Professor 

Kevin McCluskey, has been curator of the Fungal Genetics Stock Center for the last 23 years, spanning three institutions. About the last four and a half have been at K-State. Dr McCluskey is retiring to a job in private industry starting in January 2019.  Kevin’s meticulous attention to detail has served the collection well and has raised the visibility and reputation of the FGSC. He developed the current database and modernized many of the preservation and collection management protocols we all rely on. Kevin was successful at bringing funding to the FGSC and to the greater collections community, with the hope of building a sustainable future for all collections. There was no greater authority or champion of culture collections than Dr. McCluskey. His expertise and enthusiasm for the project will be missed. Kevin will not be dropping out of contact with the fungal genetics community.  You can continue to contact him through his K-State e-mail address (mccluskeyk@ksu.edu). You can reach out to him at his K-State e-mail to wish him well.

Congratulations to our Recent Graduates!

The Department of Plant Pathology is proud of our students who were recognized at the December 2019 Graduate School Commencement Ceremony.

Christian Webb

• Degree: M.S. Plant Pathology 
• Major Professor: Erick De Wolf 
• Thesis: Epidemiological factors impacting the development of Wheat streak mosaic virus outbreaks 
• Position after graduation: Assistant Director, Great Plains Diagnostic Network

Christian is pictured at right with Dr. Marty Draper.

Lorena Gomez-Montano

• Degree: PhD Plant Pathology 
• Major Professor: Ari Jumpponen and Megan Kennelly 
• Thesis: Assessing the response of soil microbial communities to different vegetable cropping methods using high-throughput DNA and RNA-based techniques and community analyses

We also want to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Karen Garrett. Dr. Garrett was Lorena’s original major professor and remained highly involved in Lorena’s project after leaving KSU.

Anupama Joshi

• Degree: PhD Genetics 
• Major Professor: Bikram Gill 
• Thesis: Map-based cloning of the Hessian fly resistance gene H13 in Wheat

Daljit Singh

• Degree: PhD Genetics 
• Major Professor: Jesse A. Poland 
• Thesis: Phenomics enabled genetic dissection of complex traits in wheat breeding 
• Position after graduation:  Fellow Post-Doc, Kansas State University, Dr. Jesse A. Poland 

Andres Salcedo 

• Degree: PhD Genetics 
• Major Professor: Eduard Akhunov 
• Thesis: Unraveling the mechanisms of Sr35-based resistance in the wheat-Puccinia graminis f.sp. tritici pathosystem 
• Position after graduation:  Fellow Post-Doc, North Carolina State University, Dr. Lina Quesada

Last but not least, we’d like to recognize one more student. Mingying Xiang was in the Department of Horticulture and Natural Resources, but her project had a strong plant pathology focus looking at two different turf diseases and our own Dr. Kennelly served as her co-major professor. At right she is pictured at commencement with Dr. Kennelly along with Dr. Jack Fry from Horticulture and Natural Resources.

Congrats to all these students, and their mentors!

 Under the direction of Dr. Jesse Poland, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics was awarded $4.9 million from U.S. Agency for International Development for the next five years. Standard deployment of a new wheat variety can take over a decade to do properly, a substantial amount of time used for verification. With the extension of the Applied Wheat Genomics lab, genomic tools can expedite the deployment process down to four years. Faster deployments of wheat varieties will increase our global ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions and disease outbreaks. This lab was one of three at Kansas State University to receive additional funding to combat global food insecurity and poverty. For more information, you can visit the Innovation Lab website at http://wheatgenetics.org/innovation-lab.

Dr. Eduard Akhunov, has been ranked in the top 1% of researchers worldwide by Highly Cited Researchers 2018. “This list recognizes world-class researchers for their exceptional research performance, demonstrated by production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science.” Highly Cited Researchers identifies top scientists in both the fields of science and social sciences “who have demonstrated significant influence through publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade.” Dr. Akhunov has been a member of K-State’s Plant Pathology department since 2007. His research focuses on wheat genome diversity and evolution, disease resistant genes in wheat as well as genetic/genomic tools and resources for wheat improvement. For more information about Highly Cited Researchers 2018, please visit https://hcr.clarivate.com/. 

Leadership changes

This edition of the Plant Pathology newsletter was prepared as a team effort by Marty Draper, Kseniya Chumachenko, Elina Adhikari, Joel Steyer, Alex Kieffaber, and Megan Kennelly.