Nov 6, 2008University of Idaho Hires Two Potato Experts
The University of Idaho College of Agricultural and Life Sciences has filled two key positions in its potato program. Phil Wharton, a senior research associate at Michigan State University, joined the faculty as potato plant pathologist at the Aberdeen Research and Extension Center on Oct. 20, and Sanjay Gupta, a research associate at the University of Minnesota, will become potato postharvest physiologist at Kimberly in mid-November.
Wharton earned his doctorate in plant disease resistance in 1997 at the United Kingdom’s University of Reading. He spent the following two years as a post-doctoral researcher at Purdue University, where he investigated mechanisms of plant disease resistance in sorghum. Since 1999, he has been employed by Michigan State University, where he studied the biology and epidemiology of diseases of cherries, blueberries, strawberries, and grapes before concentrating his efforts during the past four years on late blight, rhizoctonia, fusarium dry rot and other diseases of potatoes and sugarbeets.
Wharton is expected to conduct research on black dot and pink rot, among other diseases, as well as on weather-based disease forecasting. In addition, he intends to set up Web sites that will allow him to deliver education to growers, producers and crop advisors, as he did previously at MSU.
Gupta earned his doctorate in botany in 1997 at India’s Kanpur University, where he wrote his dissertation on chickpea seed development. He was a visiting scientist at Washington State University from 1991 to 1995, working on the physiology of photosynthesis and cold-hardy citrus fruit. For the next few years, he improved chickpea and rice lines as a research fellow for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Canberra, Australia, and conducted post-doctoral research on starch metabolism in rice and on nutritional and disease-resistance improvements in chickpeas as a post-doctoral researcher at WSU’s Institute of Biological Chemistry.
Since 1998, Gupta’s efforts at the University of Minnesota have focused on potatoes, including genetic improvements to chippers, understanding the regulation of cold-induced sweetening and developing a rapid screening method for cold-sweetening resistance.
At the University of Idaho, Gupta expects his initial studies to include respiration in cold storage, screening for acrylamide and cold-sweetening resistance, and sprout inhibitor evaluations. He was drawn to the position because it offers new challenges within the same line of work and because Idaho potato scientists are among the most active groups in the nation. I felt that I could contribute to the projects that they have,” he said.
As assistant professors in the Department of Plant, Soil and Entomological Sciences, both Wharton and Gupta will participate in the interdisciplinary Idaho Center for Potato Research and Education. ”
