Plant Variety intellectual property seminar: 4/24

"Plant Variety Protection Boot Camp"
Graduate School Seminar Series

Friday, April 24, 2009
1:30 – 3:30 PM
Biotechnology Center Auditorium
425 Henry Mall, Madison, WI

This seminar will provide useful information for plant researchers regarding the "ins and outs" of the plant variety protection act. Specifically, this seminar will examine the steps involved in filing a plant variety protection act application, including suggestions for collecting the information required for filing a plant variety protection act application and enforcement of plant variety protection certificates, including a discussion of "essentially derived varieties."  Presented by Lisa Mueller, Attorney, Dykema Gossett PLLC.

Graduate School Seminar Series sessions are open to all members of the campus community.

Registration is required, through the Office of Human Resource Development website.  To register, you must know the titles of both the series and the session.

UW impact ranking in agricultural sciences

Thomson Reuters, vendors of ISI Web of Science, have released "Institution Rankings in Agricultural Sciences, 1998-2008" based on citations per paper among institutions with 5,000 or more citations.

The University of Wisconsin is ranked #5 with 1,428 indexed papers garnering 14,326 citations, averaging 10.03 citations per paper.

Institutions ranked highly include:

#1 Tufts University - 18.08 citations per paper
#4 Cornell University - 10.98
#5 University of Wisconsin - 10.03
#6 University of California - Davis - 9.96
#10 Oregon State University - 9.63
#14 Rutgers State University - 9.3
#15 University of Massachusetts - 9.05
#16 Penn State University - 8.87
#17 University of Nebraska - 8.86
#18 Michigan State University - 8.82
#19 University of Illinois - 8.8

Related links:

• Web of Science / Web of Knowledge (h-index)
  
• Journal Citation Reports (impact factor, eigenfactor)
  

UW professor to lead Entomology Society of America

Professor David B. Hogg of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of Entomology has been elected the next president of the Entomological Society of America.

Steenbock Library subscribes to the following ESA publications:

• Annals of the Entomological Society of America (online: 1900-1950, 2000+)
  
• Environmental Entomology (online: 2000+)
  
• Journal of Economic Entomology (online: 2000+)
  
• Journal of Medical Entomology (online: 2000+)
  
• American Entomologist (online: 2001+ (most recent 2 years unavailable))
  
• Arthropod Management Tests (online: 2005+)
  

The following books, proceedings and more published by ESA can be found at Steenbock or Plant Pathology library:

• Handbook of Corn Insects
• Handbook of Forage and Rangeland Insects
• Handbook of Household and Structural Insect Pests
• Handbook of Small Grain Insects
• Handbook of Soybean Insect Pests
• Handbook of Turfgrass Insect Pests
• Use and management of insecticides, acaricides and transgenic crops
• Revision of the subfamily Macrocentrinae (Hymenoptera:Braconidae) in America north of Mexico
• New World treehopper tribe Microcentrini (Hemiptera, Membracidae, Stegaspidinae): monographic revision and phylogenetic position
• For nonnative crops: whence pollinators of the future?
• Bees and crop pollination: crisis, crossroads, conservation
• Balancing nature: assessing the impact of importing non-native biological control agents, an international perspective

Native Plant Sale: 5/9

The Friends of the UW Arboretum sponsor an annual Native Plant Sale, which will take place on May 9th from 9:00am-2:00pm, next to the Arboretum Visitor Center, Madison, Wisconsin.

More than a hundred species of native plants will be available. Information about soil and light conditions, bloom dates, plant height and color are provided for selection decisions.

Possible shrubs, vines & trees include:

• Blueberry
• Cranberry
  
• Dogwood
• Elderberry
• Hazelnut
• Hickory
• Ninebark
• Plum
• Viburnum

Possible ferns include:

• Cinnamon fern
• Interrupted fern
• Lady fern
• Maidenhair fern
• Royal fern
• Sensitive fern
• Wood fern

Possible woodland plants include:

• Anemone
• Baneberry
• Blue cohosh
• Dutchman's breeches
• Ginger, Wild
• Grass, Bottlebrsh
• Greendragon
• Jack-in-the-pulpit
• Jacob's Ladder
• Leek, Wild
• Mayapple
• Mitrewort
• Phlox, Wild Blue
• Sedge, Pennsylvania
• Solomon's Seal
• Trillium
• Trout lily
• Violet, Yellow Forest

Possible prairie plants include:

• Alumroot
• Baptisia
• Bergamot
• Blue-eyes grass
• Boneset
• Butterfly weed
• Cardinal flower
• Compass plant
• Coneflower
• Culver's Root
• Cup plant
• False dragonhead
• Gentians
• Grass, Side-oats Grama
• Harebell
• Hyssop, Lavender
• Iris, Wild
• Ironweed
• Joe-pye weed
• Leadplant
• Liatris
• Lupine
• Petunia, Wild
• Prairie Smoke
• Prickly Pear Cactus
• Rattlesnake Master
• Shooting Star
• Spiderwort
• St. John's Wort
• Strawberry, Wild
• Thimbleweed
  

Top 100 Plant Science Questions

"How can plant scientists change the world?"

Initiated by researchers in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol, "100 Plant Science Questions" invites submissions of pressing plant-related research issues facing the world today. Deadline: March 31st, 2009.

A panel drawn from academia, the public services sector and the corporate world will screen submissions.

From the website:

"Plant science is helping to address many of the big issues facing society today, such as food security, biofuels, and the effects of climate change, but what are the key questions that you think the next generation of plant scientists should be addressing?

Anyone is welcome to contribute their question, including members of the general public; agriculture, horticulture and forestry industries; ecologists; charities; policy makers; food, fibre, fuel and pharmaceutical industries; funding bodies; and researchers."

Horticulture scholarship

The Madison District of the Wisconsin Garden Club Federation invites applications through 4/15 for a $500 scholarship to a student planning to pursue a degree in a horticulture-related field of study (including landscape architecture, botany, conservation, forestry or environmental studies).

Eligible applicants must attend high school in a city in which a district club is located: Madison, Verona, Sun Prairie or Mount Horeb.

The WGCF, founded in 1928 to stimulate gardening knowledge, promote civic beauty and protect natural resources, is the largest volunteer gardening organization in the state.

Information on the scholarship is available in the administration offices of schools in the affected communities or by contacting Judith Niederberger, Madison District scholarship chair, at 608-845-7057.

New: American National Biography online

American National Biography by Oxford University Press offers biographies of more than 17,400 people whose lives have shaped the nation. Originally published in 24 volumes in 1999, the online version is updated with hundreds of new entries and revisions each year to enhance accuracy and currency.

Occupations represented include:

• Agriculturists
• Apiarists
• Biologists
• Botanists
• Ecologists
• Entomologists
• Farmers
• Foresters
• Horticulturists
• Insect Pathologists
• Landscape architects
• Mycologists
• Naturalists
• Plant collectors
• Plant geneticists
• Plant pathologists
• Plant physiologists
• Science educators
• Scientific illustrators
• Scientific organization administrators
• Secretaries of Agriculture
• Seedsmen
• Soil scientists

The ANB Online also includes 900 articles from The Oxford Companion to United States History, including:

• Agricultural Education and Extension
• Agricultural Experiment Stations
• Agriculture
• Bioethics
• Biological Sciences
• Biotechnology Industry
• Dust Bowl
• Environmentalism
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Evolution, Theory of
• Farmers' Alliance Movement
• Food and Diet
• Landscape Design
• Parks, Urban
• Science
• Subsidies, Agricultural
  

Widgets, toolbars & add-ons, oh my!

Library tools
UW-Madison's Ebling Library has created a variety of tools for free download, including:

• Ebling Library toolbar - search MadCat, Google Scholar, PubMed, etc.
• iGoogle gadgets - Library Express, Find It, Refworks, MadCat, health science resources
• Browser extensions - Firefox addons and Greasemonkey scripts

Journal, newspaper & e-book databases

• Knovel e-books: biochemistry, biotechnology, food science, toxicology, engineering - widget, toolbar and search plugin
  
• Lexis-Nexis news & legal resources - browser toolbar
  
• JSTOR journal database - Facebook app
  
• WorldCat global library catalog - Facebook app

Health sciences
UW-Madison's Ebling Library has collected a variety of tools, including:

• National Library of Medicine toolbar - PubMed, Medline, Entrez, NLM/NIH resources
  
• HONcode toolbar - "health information you can trust"

Research citation management

• Endnote Web - Internet Explorer and Firefox plug-ins
• Refworks - Write-n-Cite and RefGrab-It tools
  
• Zotero - Firefox extension

Corn / Maize bioinformatics

Panzea is an online bioinformatics database on the molecular and functional diversity of corn (maize, Zea mays).

Access genotype, phenotype and polymorphism data on this diverse crop species.

Related books...

• Molecular genetic approaches to maize improvement (2009)
  
• Handbook of maize: its biology (2008)
  
• Uncertain peril: genetic engineering and the future of seeds (2008)
• Creating abundance: biological innovation and American agricultural development (2008)
• Strongest boy in the world : how genetic information is reshaping our lives (2008)
• Plant embryogenesis (2008)
• Breeding major food staples (2007)
  

Dissertations...

• Evaluation of HPPD-inhibiting herbicides and tolerance of sweet corn (zea mays) hybrids to postemergence herbicides (2008)
  
• Role of the red: far-red light ratio in crop-weed competition and axillary meristem development in corn (2008)
• Assessing organic seed treatments for enhanced corn establishment (2008)
• Corn ethanol production in the Wisconsin agricultural context: energy efficiency, greenhouse gas neutrality and soil and water implications (2008)
  

Documents...

• Insect resistance management and refuge requirements for Bt corn (2008)
• Estimating the impact of climate change on crop yields: the importance of nonlinear temperature effects (2008)
• Henry Agard Wallace, the Iowa corn yield tests, and the adoption of hybrid corn (2008)

Videos...

• King corn: you are what you eat (2008)
  
• Corn (2007)

Articles...

• RNA Silencing Mediated by Direct Repeats in Maize: A Potential Tool for Functional Genomics (2009)
• Genetic diversity of Pakistani maize genotypes using chromosome specific simple sequence repeat (SSR) primer sets (2009)
  
• Addressing drought tolerance in maize by transcriptional profiling and mapping (2009)
• Chromosome segments involved with hybrid vigor in maize (Zea mays L.) (2008)
  

IPM & pesticide trial data

The UW-Madison Libraries are a sponsoring partner of the Plant Management Network portal, which includes Plant Disease Management Reports and Arthropod Management Tests.

Plant Disease Management Reports - formerly "Fungicide & Nematicide Tests" and "Biological & Cultural Tests for Control of Plant Disease"

• Cereals and Forage Crops
• Citrus, Tropical, Vegetables, and Miscellaneous Crops
• Field Crops
• Nematicides (all crops)
• Ornamentals and Trees
• Pome Fruits
• Seed Treatments (all crops)
• Small Fruits
• Stone Fruits and Nuts
• Turfgrass

Arthropod Management Tests

• Host Index - plants/animals/structures on which arthropod management tested
• Arthropod Common Name Index
• Arthropod Scientific Name Index
• Materials Evaluated (Brand Name) Index
• Chemicals Evaluated Name Index
• Sections Index
• Author Index