The University of Kentucky Research Foundation was awarded a $180,000 Project Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) federal grant program. The grant will fund research from June 1, 2023 through May 31, 2026 to investigate the interactions between two invasive fruit fly species, spotted wing drosophila and African fig fly, that impact small berry crop production. The Research...
The University of Kentucky Research Foundation will receive $146,000 from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program to develop a user-friendly software program for sequence-based diagnostic analysis of invasive pest species. The two-year project grant beginning September 1, 2023 intends to create an end-to-end analysis tool for next-generation sequencing data to flexibly...
The University of Kentucky Research Foundation received a $130,009 cooperative agreement award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to develop population genomic resources and diagnostic tools for strain determination and colony characterization of the Mexican fruit fly (Anastrepha ludens). The award, made under the USDA's Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program, will support this work from September 30, 2021 through September...
The University of Kentucky Research Foundation received a $180,000 Project Grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) CFDA program. The funding will support research to identify genes important for the structure and function of insect ovipositors, the body part used by female insects to lay eggs. The project takes advantage of genetic differences between two pine-feeding pest insects to uncover genes essential...
This $180,000 federal Project Grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310). The funding supports research to investigate the sources of variation in breeding, mating behavior, and genetics across multiple populations of fruit-infesting fly species that are agricultural pests. The research aims to provide critical insights into the variability among...
The University Of Kentucky Research Foundation (the Research Foundation) received a $910,000 five-year Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Program. The overarching goal of the project is to advance the understanding of utilizing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and photogrammetry to monitor and move beef cattle in pastures. The specific objectives are to: 1) develop a...
The University of Kentucky Research Foundation received a $686,010 grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program. The grant will fund research to address Fusarium graminearum, a fungus that causes major diseases in wheat, barley, rice, and corn crops, including Fusarium head blight and Gibberella ear rot. The key objectives are to develop new tools and resources to study, track, and model the Fusarium pathogen...
This $220,346 federal Project Grant was awarded on July 1, 2024 by the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program. The grant was awarded to Kansas State University (KSU) to conduct research on the invasion pathways and associated microbial communities of the Khapra beetle and Larger Grain Borer, two major invasive insect pests threatening agricultural production in the U.S. The research aims to (1) determine the...
This $2,500,000 Project Grant was awarded by the Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (CFDA 10.310) program. The grant will fund research to examine the role of invasive plants as conduits for pathogen transmission across ecosystem boundaries, with a focus on understanding the eco-evolutionary dynamics of disease emergence in agricultural and natural systems. The research team, led by the University of...
The University of Kentucky Research Foundation was awarded a $612,765 project grant from the Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (CFDA 10.310 - Agriculture and Food Research Initiative) to investigate automated techniques for calibrating remote sensing imagery from small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) used in precision agriculture. The key focus is to improve the spatial and spectral accuracy of UAS-derived measurements so that research-based models can be...