GERMINATE

GERMINATE – Grants for Emerging Research through Mentorship, Integration, and Team Science

The UGA Office of Research, Provost’s Office and the Plant Center is launching GERMINATE (Grants for Emerging Research through Mentorship, Integration, and Team Science), a seed funding program to strengthen and diversify the plant science research capacity across the Athens, Tifton, and Griffin campuses.

The GERMINATE seed grant program focuses on partnering junior with senior plant science faculty, each on a different campus, with a focus on bridging technologies and domain expertise across multiple levels: Faculty rank, Campus location, Discipline expertise, and Colleges/ Departments/Institutes/Centers.

The GERMINATE program is focused on new collaborations/initiatives and is NOT meant as a funding mechanism for existing collaborations.

From this seed program, research ties between diverse units will be strategically strengthened, a culture of shared mentorship and collaboration will be fostered, and institutional cohesion across all campuses will strengthen. This seed grant program is focused on coordinating access to specialized instrumentation/facilities/field sites with residential intensive training, enabling training in technical expertise and domain knowledge, and initiating collaborations across all of UGA.

Funds are available to award 5-7 projects each year for three years.

GERMINATE – 2026 AWARDS

Bridging Molecular Virology and Field Agronomy to Decipher Environmental Triggers of Cotton Leafroll Dwarf Virus-induced Bronze Wilt. Yongduo Sun, Department of Plant Pathology-Athens & Peng Chee, Department of Crop & Soil Sciences-Tifton

Development of a peach fruit phenotyping platform with ultra-fine high-throughput 3D phenotypic trait extraction guided by breeders and powered by AI. Zhihang Song, Department of Horticulture-Athens & Dario Chavez, Department of Horticulture-Tifton

Establishing an efficient genetic transformation system for blueberries through GERMINATE collaboration. Ye Chu, Department of Horticulture-Tifton & and Wayne Parrott, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences Department-Athens

Germinating the Peanut Digital Twin: Linking Physiology, Breeding, and Bio-Informed AI Across UGA Campuses. Ethan Pickering, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences-Athens, Nino Brown, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences-Tifton, and Cristiane Pilon, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences-Tifton

Metabolomic Dissection of Peanut Root Responses to Root-Knot Nematode infection. Akshaya Kumar Biswal, Department of Horticulture-Tifton & Chung-Jui Tsai, School of Forestry-Athens

Announcements on a new cycle of GERMINATE funding will be announced in mid-October 2026.