Manjari passed her PhD preliminary exam on Dec 13, advancing to candidacy.
Presenting at Entomology 2021
I presented at Entomology 2021, the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America (Oct 31-Nov 3; Denver, CO). Here’s a picture of me beside my poster, entitled “Phenology modeling of cotton fleahopper nymph emergence from woolly croton”. I placed second in the graduate poster competition in the Invasive Species and Vectors category.
Programming data loggers
BURS scholar Charlie Hickman (working with graduate student Manjari) assembles and programs data loggers that will be deployed in the field for collecting data related to his work with cotton fleahoppers.
2021 PLPM Graduate poster symposium
I presented some of my preliminary results related to cotton fleahoppers at the annual graduate poster symposium hosted by the department (PLPM, TAMU) on April 21, winning second place in the early career category. It was a great experience interacting with the other graduate students and getting to know more about their research.
Wood Working for Science
Undergraduate researcher Maggie Marlino at work crafting a rack and columns for experimentation with soilborne inoculum.
Roy’s Citrus Greening Research
I recently started research focusing on citrus greening and inoculum density. In the left picture, Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), the presumed causal agent of citrus greening, was first detected 6 years ago. The right picture shows a more recent infection first detected in 2020. The damage from a long-term infection is apparent between the two pictures where there are fewer leaves and the difference in the color of the leaves.
Roy’s Sampling at the Citrus Center
I went to the Citrus Center in Weslaco, Texas, to set up data loggers and collect samples. Data loggers will be used to record soil and canopy temperatures. The data from these loggers will be interesting as they were set in place shortly before Winter Storm Uri, which is likely to have affected citrus trees.
Manjari’s work with artificial diets
Here is a cool image of a cotton aphid feeding on colored artificial diet — I am excited to use this system to study vectoring mechanisms.
Manjari’s EPG work
The following figures are from my poster entitled “Comparative electropenetrography of striped mealybug and cotton aphid on cotton,” presented at the 2020 conference of the Entomological Society of America.
Preliminary findings on feeding of striped mealybug and cotton aphid on cotton seedlings show characteristic waveform patterns of these two hemipterans.
Counting Fleahoppers
Manjari and Jensen counting cotton fleahopper nymphs collected daily from woolly croton as a part of a phenology study.
