Plant Science Says

Nar Ranabhat Places in Poster Contest
The Graduate School recently hosted the
2016 Graduate Student Summit. Nar
Ranabhat, Mary Burrows graduate student,
won 2nd place in the category Natural
Sciences and Agriculture and $100 for his
poster entitled, “Impact of Downy Brome
(Bromus tectorum) and Volunteer Wheat on
Risk of Winter Wheat Infection by Wheat
Streak Mosaic Virus”. Congratulations Nar!
Montana Ag Live! Schedule
Oct. 2 - Dr. Vince Smith, MSU Agricultural
Economist will inform viewers and answer
questions concerning the Universities new
Center for Regulatory and Applied
Economics also known as CRAEA.
Oct. 9 - Jan Bowman of MSU Animal and
Range sciences will lead the panel in a
discussion about horse nutrition.
Oct. 16 - Dr. Barry Jacobsen and others with
discuss exciting innovation's stemming the
MSU's College of Agriculture Ag. Research
and Economic Development Grant
New Graduate Students
Sezgi Biyiklioglu (Hikmet Budak)
Hello, my name is Sezgi Biyiklioglu and I am
a Ph.D. student in Dr. Budak's lab. I mainly
work on genetics of several cereal crop
species and their responses in stressful
conditions. I received my bachelor's degree
a year ago from
Istanbul Technical
University, Turkey, in
Molecular Biology and
Genetics.
Being in Bozeman,
Montana has been a
different adventure for
Sezgi Biyiklioglu me. Since I am from a
big and chaotic city,
Istanbul, I find Bozeman to be a peaceful
place which is surrounded by beautiful
scenery. I love being in nature and
examining the habitat, so I believe that I
came to the right place to live and work on
plant genetics.
I am very excited to be a part of MSU,
located in such an important area where
there are actual cereal crop farmers dealing
with stress conditions and yield problems,
and looking for answers from researchers. I
strongly believe that our commitment to
this work in the PSPP department and also
in the Cereal Genomics Lab with which I am
involved will bring about solutions that will
help the community.
Justin Vetch (Mike Giroux)
Hello Everyone! My
name is Justin Vetch. I
am 28 years old. I was
born and raised in
various parts of
Montana but call
Kalispell home. I have
a 2 ½ year old son and
am expecting another
baby boy in February!
Recently (May), I
graduated from MSU
with a degree in Chemistry: biochemistry.
Currently I am working on an MS degree
under Dr. Mike Giroux with hopes of
becoming a PhD candidate. My current
research project is identifying ways to select
for reduced preharvest sprouting in wheat.
This involves screening current Montana
varieties for PHS tolerance, as well as
investigating QTLs associated with PHS.