A new graduate student at the Center!

Maria Alvarez Arredondo is one of our new graduate students at the Center. She is currently working on two projects for her research. The first is a cultivar trial, where she is testing 81 transplants from various breeding programs to assess their susceptibility to Macrophomina root rot and Verticillium wilt. The second is a sanitation study, which evaluates the effectiveness of different sanitizing agents in removing soilborne pathogens. This study also includes a survey to understand current farm practices to prevent the spread of these pathogens. She is pictured here working in her field plots and plating in the lab!