Texas Tech Features Cast of Plant Genomics Experts - Texas Tech University

The three faculty members work out of the Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources' Department of Plant & Soil Science and the Institute of Genomics for Crop Abiotic Stress Tolerance, known as IGCAST. Laza, an assistant professor in plant physiology, studies plant communication as part of her research into crop improvement. Herrera-Estrella and Patil round out the Red Raider contingent tackling what the university calls the sorghum industry's next steps.

Sorghum research matters here in a way it doesn't everywhere. Texas Tech sits in one of the country's biggest sorghum growing regions, so a conference that pulls in researchers from across the field lands close to home for South Plains agriculture.

For neighbors connected to the region's farming economy, this is a reminder that the science shaping future sorghum yields is happening a few miles from the Depot District, not in some distant lab. Better crop genetics can mean more resilient harvests for producers across West Texas.

Three Texas Tech researchers, one crop, five days of global attention on a plant most people here have driven past a thousand times without a second look.