The growing lettuce and radishes are ready for lab experimentation! Student researchers picked lettuce last Thursday and will begin analytical work in the lab.
Harvesting of Field Plots
Lauren Wind helped our team harvest a bumper crop of lettuce and radishes. There were 1308 lbs. (593 kg) of radishes and 512 lbs. (232 kg) of lettuce, resulting in a total yield of 0.91 tons!
Microbiology Students Prepare Experiments
Kendall Fogler and Giselle Guron have begun laboratory experiments to understand how antibiotics fed to cattle can affect the microbiota of vegetables grown in their manure, potentially leading to antibiotic resistance. They are culturing microorganisms from the surface of these vegetables on agar with the presence of antibiotics.
The team preparing for a field study!
NIFA Food Safety Project Directors Meeting
NIFA holds an annual project directors’ meeting for their grantees each year at the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP). This year Dr. Pruden attended the meeting in Portland OR and networked with other project directors. She presented a poster that provided an overview about this new award and joined in learning about the latest findings from NIFA grants presented in the oral presentations.
Advisory Board Meeting
We had our inaugural Advisory Board meeting in Blacksburg, VA, on July 20, 2015, and it was an incredible privilege for the Core Project Team, students, and post-docs to interact with the Advisory Board members personally. Some of the Advisory Board members delivered morning presentations, which were insightful overviews about how other groups in the US and the world are responding and working to identify the issues surrounding the spread of antibiotic resistance. 
Subsequently, Project Team PIs shared briefly about their respective plans of action for each of the project objectives, in which the Advisory Board provided excellent targeted feedback to our current progress and future plans. Not only did we work hard during our day-long meeting, but we were able to enjoy each other’s company over delicious feasts the previous evening and after the meeting at two of the finest dinner spots in the New River Valley!