Washington State University’ opened its $66 million Plant Sciences Building last fall on its Pullman campus.
The five-floor, 82,437-square-foot center integrates several disciplines from the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences. It supports the state’s food and agriculture industry by providing a modern research venue for faculty and students in the Institute of Biological Chemistry, WSU’s Molecular Plant Science Program and portions of the Departments of Horticulture, Plant Pathology, and Crop and Soil Sciences.
A two-floor cantilever faces west towards Martin Stadium. A new landscaped approach creates a public space for the university.
A four-floor staircase encourages vertical circulation and provides visual connections between floors. At every level, centralized social spaces link circulation elements with the central spine.
USDA ARS
ARS geneticist Sarah Hake and University of California, Berkeley colleague George Chuck study juvenile traits of corngrass. They have found that inserting a specific corngrass gene into switchgrass keeps it in its juvenile form. Scientists from WSU, UC, Arizona involved in ongoing effort to improve the emerging bioenergy crop switchgrass.
Feb 22, 2021
Researchers from Washington State University, the University of California and the Arizona Genomics Institute are part of a large team that announced the genome sequence for switchgrass, a major bioenergy crop.
Laura Bartley, an associate professor in WSU’s Institute of Biological Chemistry, worked for 15 years on the project, which could lead to larger, easier to process switchgrass plants.
WSU researchers found evidence of Mexican Marigold and two different tobacco species in ancient Maya drug containers found in the northwestern region of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Mexican Marigold is a fragrant plant and has been used in Mesoamerican culture since the 16th century, said Mario Zimmermann, postdoctoral research associate at WSU’s Institute of Biological Chemistry.
Some indigenous cultures still use it for medicine, he said. The use of tobacco and Mexican Marigold is similar to aromatherapy, and the addition of Mexican Marigold to the tobacco makes the experience more soothing.
“As counterintuitive as this might sound, [tobacco] is used a lot for problems with lungs,” he said. “‘People also use tobacco, to this day, as an antiparasitic.”
January 28, 2021
A field technician wrestling a large switchgrass plant during fall harvest (photo credit: Jason Bonnette).
A Washington State University researcher is part of a large team that announced the genome sequence for switchgrass, a major bioenergy crop.
Laura Bartley, an associate professor in WSU’s Institute of Biological Chemistry, worked for 15 years on the project, which could lead to larger, easier to process switchgrass plants.
“Making switchgrass cultivars more economically successful and competitive is a key to decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels,” Bartley said.
Gardeners and farmers around the country recognize that crop varieties grow best in certain regions. Most plant species have adapted to their local environments; for example, crop and ornamental seeds sold for the upper Midwest are often very different than those bred for Texas. Identifying and breeding varieties that have high productivity across a range of environments is becoming increas
If you’re of a certain age and get stopped by the police for a minor traffic violation, you soon find out that, despite your denials, they can find out what you were using prior to the offense by inspecting the residue in your ashtray. The ancient Mayas didn’t have cars but were suspected of smoking substances other that their (and other indigenous people on the continent) contribution to lung cancer and heart disease in the rest of the world – tobacco. Lacking ashtrays, researchers had no way of identifying those substances until recently when scientists from Washington State University found 14 miniature Maya ceramic vessels used for storing tobacco. Better yet, there was residue left on the bottom which they were able to analyze, finding two types of tobacco and the Maya non-tobacco drug of choice. If you want to get high like a Maya, pull out your annual seed catalogue, turn to the flowers section and order up an envelope of …