Bacteria Detective

Bacteria Detective

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Pullman Washington based Soil Scientist/Soil Microbiologist, Dr. Ann Kennedy tells of her quest to give farmers in the Northwest a tool for battling cheat grass. It's a scientific tale which is absolutely fascinating and agricultural producers should be very grateful for researchers like Dr. Kennedy who is searching for solutions. "I started with how I got hooked on these bacteria that I work with. We have these invasive weeds. They are fall annuals which means they can germinate in the fall as well as the spring and they gain their competitive growth by this low temperature root growth. That is why they are so competitive. They love to grow in the wintertime whereas wheat is not that much in colder temperatures. We were working on these wheat inhibitory bacteria. You're like, why are you talking about wheat, where you have probably been in wheat fields in the early spring and you have seen yellow stripes where there is stunted growth. That is where we go to find these bacteria. Basically what I am talking about is a bio control agent. Based on poor growth of wheat in the early spring that was pretty selective for different cultivars due to the bacteria that was colonizing the roots, we thought let's look at annual weeds and see if we can find bacteria in the soil that inhibit these various weeds that are problems and see if we can make it very selective so it just hurts but weed and not any crops."
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