Research

Meeting the Challenges: Food, Feed, Fiber, and Fuel
Cutting-edge research in plant molecular breeding, biochemistry, genetics, and genomics is considered vital to safe-guard the environment while sustainably meeting the food, feed, fiber, and fuel needs of an ever-increasing population.
The development of new food, feed, fiber, and/or fuel products requires a clear understanding of plant growth and evolution and, conversely, that the most important discoveries in plant biology are those that can be made directly applicable to agriculture and associated industries. The Plant Center seeks to facilitate communication and to stimulate collaboration between individual researchers on the UGA campus, with a particular focus on uniting those with basic vs. applied research interests.
Areas of Research
The Plant Center connects UGA researchers across fields to advance understanding of:
Biotechnology
- Akshaya Kumar Biswal
- Robin Buell
- Kelly Dawe
- Christopher M. Dundas
- Melissa Mitchum
- Wayne Parrott
Evolution, Ecology and Biodiversity
- Jill Anderson
- Doug Aubrey
- Helen Bothwell
- John Burke
- Marin Brewer
- Shu-Mei Chang
- Anny Chung
- Megan DeMarche
- Lisa Donovan
- Alex Harkess
- Dan Johnson
- Brian Kvitko
- Jim Leebens-Mack
- Jacqueline Mohan
- Rodney Mauricio
- Michelle Momany
- Chris Peterson
- Andrea Sweigart
- Caterina Villari
- Tanisha Williams
- Nina Wurzburger
Genetics and Genomics
- Magdy Alabady
- Jeff Bennetzen
- David Bertioli
- Akshaya Kumar Biswal
- Helen Bothwell
- Marin Brewer
- Robin Buell
- John Burke
- Josh Clevenger
- Joann Conner
- Kelly Dawe
- Katrien Devos
- Chris Dundas
- Jonathan Gent
- Alex Harkess
- Chang-Hyun Khang
- Brian Kvitko
- Soraya Leal-Bertioli
- Jim Leebens-Mack
- Zachary Lewis
- Zenglu Li
- Xiaorong Lin
- Cecilia McGregor
- Mohamed Mergoum
- Melissa Mitchum
- Michelle Momany
- Brad Nelms
- Andrew Ogden
- Peggy Ozias-Akins
- Wayne Parrott
- Andy Paterson
- Robert Schmitz
- Shavannor Smith
- Yongduo Sun
- Andrea Sweigart
- Miaoying Tian
- CJ Tsai
- Esther van der Knaap
- Jason Wallace
- Dayton Wilde
- Tanisha Williams
- Lav Yadav
- Li Yang
- Xiaoyu Zhang
Resources
- Costa Rica Campus
- Georgia Genomics Facility
- Georgia Museum of Natural History
- Herbarium
- Organization for Tropical Studies
- Plant Growth Facilities – College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
- Plant Growth Facilities – Plant Biology
- Research Computing
- River Basin Center
- Savannah River Ecology Laboratory
- State Botanical Garden
- Bioimaging Research Center
Species
Research at the Plant Center focuses on the following species:

Alfalfa

Algae

Arabidopsis

Bacteria

Blueberry

Common Bean

Cotton

Duckweed

Fungi

Maize

Millet

Mimulus
(monkey flower)

Morning glory

Nicotiana

Onion

Peanut

Pine

Poplar

Potato

Rehmannia

Rice

Sorghum

Soybean

Sunflower

Sweetpotato

Switchgrass

Tomato

Turfgrass

Watermelon