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Graduate students showcase their research.

Shelley E. Huguley, Editor

January 3, 2020

3 Min Read
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Masters and Ph.D. Poster Contest winners from left: TPPA Poster Chair Josh McGinty; Master's First Place, Zachary Howard; Master's Third Place, Mason House; Master's Second Place, Cynthia Sias; Ph.D. Third Place, Matthew Matocha standing in for Rohith Vulchi; Ph.D. First Place, Chengsong hu; and outgoing TPPA President Clark Neely. Missing from the photo is Ph.D. Second Place winner, Jorge Valenzuela-Antelo.Shelley E. Huguley

The Texas Plant Protection Association Poster Contest is not only an opportunity for graduate students to display their research but an invitation for communication and interaction between students and the attending professional agricultural industry.

Gary Schwarzlose, former TPPA president and VP-poster chair, and credited for increasing poster contest participation and conference attendance, says the competition is a valuable part of the annual meeting. 

"As individuals in the industry, whether university, extension or industry, we never get to see the graduate students or undergraduates unless we see them in the field. This is a great way for us to learn something about them, see what they're doing, meet them, have them talk to us and get that interaction."

See, Juan Landivar receives Norman Borlaug Lifetime Achievement Award

Twenty-two Texas A&M graduate students and seven industry participants lined the center aisle of the exhibit hall with their large, laminated posters displaying their research, results and accompanying images and or graphs. The competition awards students in master's and Ph.D. categories with cash prizes.

Schwarzlose, Bayer Crop Science senior technical service rep for Texas, says bringing the next generation into the agriculture industry is important. "This industry is changing. Used to, you would start with a company and stay with that company 30, 40, 50 years. But a lot of the individuals in this organization and in agriculture, we're getting past that 50-year mark. We're seeing retirement on the horizon and we need somebody to come in and replace us."

Awarded the 2019 Ray Smith Leadership Award, Schwarzlose says when he visits with graduates, whether on behalf of agriculture or TPPA, he tells them not be a single person. "Don't just be an entomologist. Don't just be a weed specialist. Be somebody that a company wants to hire. Be the person who covers all kinds of different activities. Understand new technology. Be the IT specialist, even if you're on a small scale, you're going to become bigger and more valuable to a company because of it."

Poster winners

Poster Contest winners are announced at the annual TPPA luncheon, along with winners of the annual Pest ID Contest moderated by Barron Rector, long-time TPPA member and Texas A&M University associate professor and Extension Range specialist. 

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The poster winners are as follows:

Master's category:

  • First Place: Zachary Howard- "Evaluation of Chemical Control Options for Smutgrass (Sporobolus indicus) in Texas"

  • Second Place: Cynthia Sias- "Understanding Interspecific Hybridization between grain sorghum (Sorghum Bicolor) and Johnsongrass (Sorghum halepense)"

  • Third Place: Mason House- "Comparison of Ground and Unmanned aerial Sprayer Individual Plant Treatment Method for Control of Smutgrass (Sporobolus inducus)"

Ph.D. category:

  • First Place: Chengsong hu- "Seed production estimation of late-season common waterhemp (Amaranthus rudis) escapes in soybean using drone imagery"

  • Second Place: Jorge Valenzuela-Antelo- "Mapping of Traits Adaptive to the U.S. Southern and Central Great Plains in a 'TAM 204'/'Iba' Population"

  • Third Place: Rohith Vulchi- "Stewardship practices in XtendFlex Cotton and economic Analysis"

“The TPPA board really appreciates the hard work from all of the students on these posters,” says TPPA VP-Post Chair Josh McGinty.  “This is a great opportunity for them to share the results of their research with the ag industry in Texas and for them to interact with growers, consultants, and industry personnel.”

Pest ID Contest, out of 113 participants, the following placed:

  • First Place: Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Program Specialist Dale Mott

  • Second Place: Crop Consultant Gary Kennedy

  • Third Place: Agronomist Travis Janak

 

 

 

About the Author(s)

Shelley E. Huguley

Editor, Southwest Farm Press

Shelley Huguley has been involved in agriculture for the last 25 years. She began her career in agricultural communications at the Texas Forest Service West Texas Nursery in Lubbock, where she developed and produced the Windbreak Quarterly, a newspaper about windbreak trees and their benefit to wildlife, production agriculture and livestock operations. While with the Forest Service she also served as an information officer and team leader on fires during the 1998 fire season and later produced the Firebrands newsletter that was distributed quarterly throughout Texas to Volunteer Fire Departments. Her most personal involvement in agriculture also came in 1998, when she married the love of her life and cotton farmer Preston Huguley of Olton, Texas. As a farmwife, she knows first-hand the ups and downs of farming, the endless decisions made each season based on “if” it rains, “if” the drought continues, “if” the market holds. She is the bookkeeper for their family farming operation and cherishes moments on the farm such as taking harvest meals to the field or starting a sprinkler in the summer with the whole family lending a hand. Shelley has also freelanced for agricultural companies such as Olton CO-OP Gin, producing the newsletter Cotton Connections while also designing marketing materials to promote the gin. She has published articles in agricultural publications such as Southwest Farm Press while also volunteering her marketing and writing skills to non-profit organizations such as Refuge Services, an equine-assisted therapy group in Lubbock. She and her husband reside in Olton with their three children Breely, Brennon and HalleeKate.

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