Imagine a tractor-size machine that can tell the difference between a vegetable and a weed – and then zaps the unwelcome plant with a laser. It’s not science fiction. It’s being tested in New Jersey by Rutgers University scientist Thierry Besançon. An associate professor with the Department of Plant Biology in the School of Environmental and […]
Plant Biology
Distinguished Professor Eric Lam Awarded 2025 Agriculture Innovation Award
Eric Lam, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Plant Biology, was the recipient of the Agriculture Innovation Award at the Rutgers Office of Research banquet on Oct 7, celebrating the 2025 awards winners with peers, industry executives and Rutgers University leadership. The Rutgers Innovation Awards, hosted by the Rutgers Office for Research for the second […]
Celebrating Nicki Graf CC’77 and Her 37-Year Career of Cultivating Plants and People at Rutgers
Perhaps as iconic to Cook Campus as Passion Puddle and the Rutgers Farm, the Floriculture Greenhouse with its towering smokestack has long been a joyful place for plant-minded people at Rutgers. One of the oldest buildings on Cook campus, the Floriculture Greenhouse originally served as a research station focusing on cut flower production and preservation […]
Nutritional Sciences Teaching Kitchen Celebrates a Year of Success with Meaningful Collaborations
Since its renovation and grand opening just over a year ago, the Teaching Kitchen, housed on the second-floor foods lab in Davison Hall on the Cook/Douglass campus, has truly hit its stride. Staying true to the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS) mission of hands-on, collaborative learning to life, the space has become a […]
Flying High to Find Drought-Resistant Grass
Zoysiagrass is a popular lawn choice because it looks great and handles heat fairly well—but it still struggles in dry conditions. A new study is using drones and advanced imaging technology to find out which types of zoysiagrass do best when water is scarce. Bingru Huang, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Plant Biology and […]
Scientists Find a New Way to Help Plants Fight Diseases
A breakthrough by a collaboration between Rutgers and Brookhaven National Laboratory could improve crop resilience In a discovery three decades in the making, scientists at Rutgers and Brookhaven National Laboratory have acquired detailed knowledge about the internal structures and mode of regulation for a specialized protein and are proceeding to develop tools that can capitalize […]
Plant Breeders Stage a Dogwood Revolution, Creating Hardy Varieties That Sparkle
With the advent of Memorial Day, the treescape in the Northeast has turned mostly green again, the ornamentals’ early spring flowers long dried and scattered. But there’s an exception. The vivid pink Scarlet Fire® dogwood tree, produced through decades of research by Rutgers University-New Brunswick plant breeders, is just starting to bloom. Introduced to consumers […]
Rutgers Hosts 34th Annual Turfgrass Symposium
The 34th Annual Rutgers Turfgrass Symposium hosted on March 20 by the Center for Turfgrass Science provided Rutgers faculty, students, staff, as well as national and international participants with the opportunity to exchange ideas and encourage collaboration on research topics in turfgrass science. The symposium featured presentations on modern approaches to research in turfgrass science […]
Not Mushroom for Debate – “The Last of Us” Spores Interest in Mycological Research
In the HBO hit series, The Last of Us, a global pandemic fueled by a mutated Cordyceps fungus turns people into zombies – a scenario seemingly realistic to anyone who watched nature documentaries under quarantine. While Cordyceps is a real fungus that affects insects, famously seen parasitizing ants in BBC’s Planet Earth hijacking their brains […]
Scientists Witness Plant Cells Generate Cellulose and Form Cell Walls for First Time
In a discovery with potential practical applications, a team of Rutgers biophysicists, bioengineers and plant biologists capture first live images In a groundbreaking study on the synthesis of cellulose – a major constituent of all plant cell walls – a team of Rutgers University-New Brunswick researchers has captured images of the microscopic process of cell-wall […]










