We have gotten currants in the ground under solar panels! going to test different varieties of currants under different kinds of solar panels. #energysky 🌾🧪🌱🫐

MY CROSS WORKED! hurray! First cross tested set berries! I would have let it ripen more but this one was damaged by a cultivator. Now to check the seeds

I'm trying lots of different bagging methods and securing methods and seeing what I like best. That means my pollination apron from my time doing corn is coming in handy. As are my cool new specs

Blooms are starting to open up in my currant plants and I am trying to cross pollinate them for the first time. They need to be "emasculated" meaning before the flower can open, I have to carefully remove all the parts of the flower that make pollen, leaving only the stigma and ovary

I got to go in the @cimmyt.bsky.social seed bank! They maintain and store seeds from thousands of corn and wheat varieties for food and genetic diversity security. Huge honor!

Cool insight: when restoring landscape that had been agricultural land back to prairie, often a small number of fast growing natives dominate. Maybe due to soil microbes! If you inoculate with soil from older intact prairie, the planting may become diverse and support slow growing plants again.

This conference I'm trying to monitor CO2 concentrations to help me decide when to take anti-viral precautions. Hopefully, I won't come home ill. It's wild the difference between rooms at the end of sessions. Context: 400-500 ppm is similar to CO2 outside. 1400ppm is a stuffy slept-in bedroom. 😷

It's amazing to remember how new of a crop soybeans are. In 1902 it was used as an animal forage (a plant to graze on). Growing soybeans for the beans wasn't done. So much has changed in the last 100 years and so much can change in the next 100.
@cimmyt.bsky.social

Grains that grow back every year have deeper roots and require less work to grow, since farmers don't have to plant every year. Better for farms and soils.
@cimmyt.bsky.social

At a conference all about perennial grains in Mexico. CIMMYT, the amazing organization dedicated to corn and wheat improvement is hosting. Scientists from all over the world are here connecting. @cimmyt.bsky.social

Species susceptibility categories from Maloy OC (1997) WHITE PINE BLISTER RUST CONTROL IN NORTH AMERICA:A Case History.

Here's to 2025 and more exciting breeding work!

This was my first year of establishing our breeding programs for elderberry and currants with the Savanna Institute. It's been a packed year!

A run down of my 2024 reading!

Harvesting currant plants with our sister organization Canopy Farm Management. These are currant bareroot plants. Each stick is a single plant that gets dug out of the ground.