FORT WAYNE, Ind. — Faculty and students at the horticulture department at Purdue University hit the ground running with a list of goals, projects and research prospects for the new year.
Hazel Wetzstein, formerly a horticulture professor at the University of Georgia, was appointed professor and head of Purdue’s Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture last year.
She gave a department update at the Indiana Horticultural Congress and Trade Show.
“A huge challenge we have is that, by 2050, there will be over 9 billion people on earth,” Wetzstein. “We’re going to have to double production. And there’s only a limited amount of agricultural land.”
In order to meet this demand, she said, we will need to produce plants that are more efficient, have higher yields, perform better and have better nutrition. It will be important to engineer plants that can better use water and nutrients.
Purdue is taking a step to meeting these needs via a $20 million plant science initiative.
As part of the initiative, 10 new faculty members will be recruited to the College of Agriculture.
“We’re also improving infrastructure with a genotype editing facility where we can look at plant genetics and modify those,”Wetzstein said. “We’re doing automated genotyping, where either through airplanes or sensors we can assess plants — thousands at a time.
“With more people changing from rural to urban society, there’s going to be a need to produce food in new ways. Urban farming is one of those. Whether it’s vertical farming, hydroponics, growing fish, agritourism, local farms, or U-picks — we’re trying to be at the forefront of these areas.”
A new major, sustainable foods and farming systems, will be offered to undergraduates in the horticulture department.
The curriculum will include classes on urban horticulture, small farm experiences and sustainable production.
Creating new crops, Wetzstein said, also is on the minds of students and professors.
“New crops are going to be really important in order to get vegetables that are designed to survive better,” she said. “We have all of these exotic pests and diseases coming in. We have to find a way to fight that difficulty.
“There’s a lot of exciting work done with specialty crop production — we’re trying to find alternative crops. Finding ways to increase shelf life of tomatoes. Finding plants that are of higher nutrition, that are better for us.”
To learn more about Purdue horticulture, visit www.ag.purdue.edu/hla.
External Link: http://agrinews-pubs.com/Content/News/Latest-News/Article/Feeding-the-future-will-require-new-foods-efficient-practices-/8/6/11992