Campus News

Conference to focus on weeds

Bridging the Gap between Evolutionary Ecology and Crop Science.” The event will bring together scientists and ecologists to discuss how weeds become problematic to farmers, and how researchers from a range of disciplines can begin to address a common ground for tackling the problems that weeds pose to the nation’s food supply.

The conference will be held in the Georgia Center. Keynote speakers will be Jonathan Gressel, emeritus professor of plant sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and Jodie Holt, botany and plant sciences professor at the University of California, Riverside.

Topics to be addressed at the conference will include evolutionary ecology of weed species, weed adaptation to the agricultural system, transgene movement from crops to wild species, parasitic weeds, weed shifts and weedy species of special interest. Some 17 speakers, including representatives from other universities, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and industry, will be present for the event.

More information on the conference is available online (www.plantbio.uga.edu/weeds). The conference is sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the departments of plant biology and crop and soil sciences at UGA.