Managing Soil and Plant Microbiomes for Better Crop and Human Health
Soils contain an abundant and diverse set of microorganisms that can closely interact with plants to influence how they acquire resources and withstand biotic and abiotic stress. Understanding how to manage these beneficial plant-soil-microbial relationships has potential help growers lower input costs, improve the yield and quality of their crops, and promote the health of consumers. This talk will provide an overview of studies conducted in Purdue’s Soil Microbial Ecology aimed at identifying practical approaches to promote soil, crop and human health on rural and urban vegetable farms.
Speaker
Lori Hoagland
Dr. Hoagland holds an MS in Agroecology and a PhD in Soil Microbiology and Biochemistry from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Washington State University, respectively. She joined the faculty at Purdue University in 2010 in a newly created position focused on developing more sustainable specialty crop production systems. Her research program aims to address this challenge by identifying practical ways to support beneficial soil microbiomes while also developing new crop cultivars with the capacity to functionally interact with these organisms. In 2019, she served as a visiting professor at the National University of Colombia-Bogota supported by the Fulbright Scholar Program, and in 2021, assumed the role of co-Director and lead PI of the Arequipa Nexus Institute, a unique partnership aimed at supporting challenges facing the food-energy-water nexus in southern Peru. In her time at Purdue, she has taught courses in Plant Propagation, Plant Microbiomes, and Urban Agriculture.