Commodity Teams

Like proud parents at a recital, undergraduate students in the upper-level University of Georgia “Greenhouse Management” class fussed around the hundreds of daisies, chrysanthemums, Gasteria succulents, snapdragons, dianthus and echinacea they had cultivated for their inaugural plant sale. The October sale, like the rearing of the plants from seedling plugs donated by green industry partners, was entirely student-planned and implemented.

The blueberries were suffering. It was the summer of 2022, and Amelia Lyons was working at Sweet Acre Farms, a Georgia vineyard specializing in fruit wines. While Lyons was fixing the vineyard’s irrigation for a dry summer, she noticed that small, dark red spots had appeared on the blueberries. While searching for a solution, she came across a peer-reviewed paper from the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences that addressed the exact disease she was trying to treat.

For more than a century, generations of researchers in the University of Georgia's Department of Plant Pathology have been at the leading edge of knowledge and innovation. As these researchers pass down their knowledge, their foundational scientific exploration helps safeguard crops, advance agricultural practices and ensure food security, not only in Georgia but far beyond its borders.