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- AgCenter scientist receives grant to study soybean fungus
(05/02/23) BATON ROUGE, La. — LSU AgCenter plant pathologist Sara Thomas-Sharma has been awarded a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant to study a common disease of soybeans.
Cercospora leaf blight is a disease that continues to be a problem for soybean farmers in the mid-South, with cost to the industry at more than $250 million over the past five years.
Thomas-Sharma was recently awarded a $300,000, two-year grant that will allow her to look at ways of controlling the disease. She is studying the underlying mechanisms of toxin production and sequestration by the fungus.
Cercospora is more widespread in the South than it is in the Midwest or other larger soybean-producing regions of the U.S.
While Thomas-Sharma’s research currently focuses on mid-South growers, Cercospora could become a bigger problem for northern regions in the future, she said.
She plans to answer questions for growers on how to manage Cercospora to better protect their bottom lines.
Thomas-Sharma’s AgCenter career began in 2018 after earning her doctorate at the University of Georgia and completing postdoctoral training at Kansas State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Thomas-Sharma’s research focuses on ways to improve the management of diseases in field crops, especially soybeans. She is based in Baton Rouge, where she also teaches a general plant pathology course.
LSU AgCenter plant pathologist Sara Thomas-Sharma examines a fungal toxin, cercosporin, in her lab on the LSU Baton Rouge campus. Thomas-Sharma has been awarded a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant to study a common disease of soybeans. Photo by Johnny Morgan/LSU AgCenter
The LSU AgCenter and the LSU College of Agriculture