Remembering and grateful for the teachers and mentors who shaped me. And also thankful for my trainees, past and present, some of whom introduced me to a day set aside honor those same guides. Happy Guru Purnima!
James Schnable
@szintri.bsky.social
Plant biologist and computer geek. Prof. at University of Nebraska.
Check out the impact of the post-pandemic surge in review paper publications. Visualization of the citation histories of seventeen plant science faculty.
Just had one of those great professor moments where I needed to explain something and had the perfect ear of corn to show what I was talking about right at hand.
The days that make me appreciate living in Lincoln Nebraska.
It's finally happening! After multiple rainouts and a redesign of our whole planting workflow, our nearly 1,000 line sorghum diversity panel in going into the ground today. Big thank you to Chidu, Kyle, Jon and the UNL Agronomy farm crew.
For the first time as a prof, I’m mentoring students aiming for faculty jobs in India. I understand which factors matter the most for US and Chinese faculty hiring—but can anyone help me figure out what we should be emphasizing to be competitive at Indian universities?
Protecting against downside risk doesn’t have to come at the expense of continued increases in the yield potential. No evidence of a tradeoff between yield stability and maximum yield in an analysis of hybrid performance across 34 environments. New pub led by @jensinadavis.bsky.social
National Science Foundation's forecast for how many fewer scientists, postdocs, and graduate students we'll be able to support in 2026.
Did anyone else get a "we've been asked to pause issuance of grant funding during the transition of government" e-mail from USDA-NIFA this morning?
Just had a no cost extension request denied with only 14 days before grant funds expire. If you've been waiting months to hear back don't assume it's just the government being slow to process things and everything will ultimately work out.
Paper came back from review after seven months. The editor (not the reviewers) tells me: 1) Redo the GWAS using a different statistical model in a different software package. 2) Add a brand new RNA-seq experiment and results. 3) Please submit your revised manuscript within 14 days. 🤷
In January of 2023 Waqar Ali arrived in Lincoln with no coding background (and no winter coat). Today he published a paper using GWAS to identify genes linked to variation in how corn photosynthesizes, complete with reverse genetics validation in arabidopsis. doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...
This seems like a shockingly large effect size unless "professionally edited" is confounded with a bunch of other variables that would have a big impact on paper acceptance rates with or without the editing.
🧬🌾📊🔍 RESEARCH 🔍 📊🌾🧬 'Unveiling shared genetic regulators of plant architectural and biomass yield traits in the Sorghum Association Panel' - Singh et al. doi.org/10.1093/jxb/... @szintri.bsky.social #PlantScience 🧪
Students say they’ll keep working on papers after graduation. I tell them I'll understand when (not if) they don’t. Life happens. But there are exceptions. Ramesh left my lab nearly a year ago, but kept pushing. His 1st thesis chapter was just published. bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
Transcripts and genomic intervals associated with variation in metabolite abundance in maize leaves under field conditions - BMC Genomics
Plants exhibit extensive environment-dependent intraspecific metabolic variation, which likely plays a role in determining variation in whole plant phenotypes. However, much of the work seeking to use...
bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com
I helped launch and run a startup commercializing technology that could identify the fields where more fertilizer wouldn't increase crop productivity and save farmers money. SBIR funding from NSF is how we made the leap from concept to product and acquisition.
Preparing 50 trays with 4,800 slots for our first large-scale sampling effort
Grateful to work at a university that has on campus cornfields. Greenhouses and growth chamber are good and all. But sometimes need something more. Our lab will be planting our first proper summer corn nursery since 2021 this year.
I'm two decades late but really entertained by the term "mFruits."
Frank's an outstanding scientist and he's assembled a really cool team at Bonn. Definitely check this out.
The folks in the lab are calling this one "Christmas Tree sorghum." (Photo by Kyle Linders)
Current students and the students of one of my former trainees (Ravi Mural) together at ASPB midwest. If I'm still professor-ing a decade from now perhaps I'll be meeting and working with some of the students trained or scientists mentored by the folks in this photo.
ज़िंदगी छोटी भी है और अनमोल भी — इसे महसूस करो, इसे चाहो, इसे ज़ाया मत होने दो।
I take my responsibilities as an advisor and mentor seriously. But, sometimes, advisors need positive feedback too.