The Soybean Research Center held a Lightning Talk and Networking event on January 26th, 2024, highlighting 7 researchers and their recent work ranging from soybean plant architecture, pests, timing of stressors that impact yield and others. Dozens attended the talks that ran only 5 minutes but packed a punch, information wise. Following the talks we had a socializing hour with plenty of drinks and food and the time was well spent with many interesting conversations that were sparked by the information shared in the presentations.
The speakers and subjects (Sarah Lisak, "Biological Control of Soybean Gall Midge" ; Bob Koch, "The Soybean Tentiform Leafminer; A New Pest of Soybean" ; Paul Atkins, "The S-Locus - and Unstable CNV Controlling Plant Height" ; Alina Smolskaya, "Lowdown on lo: Mapping a Single Gene Controlling Leaflet Shape and Seed Number in Soybean" ; Mjay Espina, "Assembly and Utilization of a Single Haplotype Reference Genome for Soybean" ; Suma Sreekanta, "Changes in Shoot Architecture Accompanying Decades of Selective Breeding for Seed Yield in Soybean" ; Anibal Cerrudo, "Critical Period for Soybean") highlighted the diversity of work being done here at the U. Students, staff and Faculty presented and were in the audience, providing a diversified crowd on both sides which makes for a rich environment for collaboration, which is one of our main goals at the SRC.
