Photo Contests
Current Contest Information (September - December '24)
Theme: Innovative Techniques in Plant Breeding
Prizes
- 1st place: $250
- 2nd place: $150
- 3rd place: $100
Specifications
- There is a maximum of three photo submissions per IPBGG student; composite photos are no longer accepted.
- Photos’ width must be between 320 and 1080 pixels and the aspect ratio must fall between 4:5 and 1.91:1 (a height between 566 and 1350 pixels with a width of 1080 pixels). Pictures with higher resolution are also accepted, however they will be sized down to a width of 1080 pixels for departmental promotions.
- Candidate’s personal information such as name, email address and lab information must be included.
- A photo caption of maximum 150 characters must be included.
- It is necessary for at least five students to participate in the contest for it to be valid.
- In case the contest is not valid, the theme of the contest will be the same for the following four months, and the pictures already submitted will be considered for the next round.
Website Banner Contest - October-December 2024
Submit an image to be used as the main image on the home page of the IPBGG website!
Grand Prize: $250
Specifications
- Submitted photos and candidates' personal information will be employed by the Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics for promotions.
- There is a maximum of three photo submissions per IPBGG student.
- Photos’ width must be 2500 px by 960 px
- Candidate’s personal information must be included, such as name, email address, and lab information.
- A short description (<250 words) of why you think the photo is fit for the IPBGG website.
- It is necessary for at least three students to participate in the contest to be valid.
- In case the contest is not valid, there will be no selection, and the pictures already submitted will be considered for the next round. Photos must meet all criteria to be considered; resubmissions will be accepted until the contest closes.
May - September 2024 Winners
1st place: This year, the Chavez lab harvested so many peaches that we filled the back of the pickup five times! The pickup was parked on the Griffin Campus for everyone to grab some peaches.
2nd place: Different colors, distinct flavors—hot to sweet, nature’s vibrant palette of peppers offers a taste for every craving!
3rd place: Domestication and breeding has brought us tomatoes with a wide range of colors. And these tomatoes can taste very differently too!
January - April 2024 Winners
First Place: Jazib Ali Irfan (Dr. Missaoui's lab) - From seeds to seedlings to row planting to mature plants. Switchgrass ensures decarbonization for clean and green future.
Second Place: Chloe de la Cerna (Dr. Missaoui's lab) - Friend of foe? Preparing a metabolomic assay of toxicf and non-toxic grass endophytes to evaluate their biochemial potential in tall fescue breeding.
Third Place: Shreena Pradhan (Dr. Devos' lab) - Phenotyping zoysiagrass f2 population in the greenhouse after genetic mapping.
August - November 2023 Winners
First Place: Sameer Pokhrel (Dr. Ozias-Akins's lab) - Breeding seeds for tomorrow sometimes starts with passing the peanut seeds through PVC pipes to maintain uniform seed distance.
Second Place: Chloe de la Cerna (Dr. Missaoui's lab) - Using tetrazolium to assess seed viability in tall fescue seeds. Embryos showing active respiration are considered viable and stained red.
Third Place: Brianna Cheek (Dr. Ozias-Akins's lab) - An army of seeds waiting to be sterilized by ultraviolet light. These peanuts will be used to study the genetics behind aflatoxin resistance.
April - July 2023 Winners
First Place: Stephanie Botton (Dr. Ozias-Akins's lab) - Tifton PBGG students showcase their crops while representing the institute. These cropps include cotton, peanut, pecan, muscadine, and turf.
Second Place: Samikshya Rijal (Dr. Bahri's lab) - Do you wonder how your lawn gets perfect grasses? #ArtOfPlanBreedingAndGenetics
Third Place: Katie Toomey (Dr. Parrot's lab) - Microbial Masterpiece: The Cultivated Fuorescent Rose
December 2022 - March 2023 Winners
First Place: Jazib Ali Irfan (Dr. Missaoui's lab) - Agricultural sciences allowed me to utilize and familiarize myself with the Marvels of Engineering. The Wintersteiger seed thresher and harvester help end that backbreaking manual switchgrass harvesting.
Second Place: Gema Takbir Nugraha (Dr. Ozias-Akins's lab)- Taste of hard work: A major advantage of working in agriculture that everyone loves is the satisfaction of eating what you grow.
Third Place: Stephanie Botton (Dr. Ozias-Akins's lab) - Being a peanut warrior: Protecting peanuts through disease and pest resistance research - even in the cold!
August - November 2022 Winners
1st place: Gema Takbir Nugraha (Dr. Ozias-Akins' lab) - The search for disease resistance through multidisciplinary research: leaves of a wild peanut species were being investigated for leaf spot diseases.
2nd place: Madhav Subedi (Dr. Mergoum's lab) - F2 to F6 generation lines of wheat are planted in head rows. We use bubble trays for planting their seed.
3rd place: Gaurab Bhattarai (Dr. Conner's lab) - Integrating science of firmness: Using 'FirmTech', muscadine berries are tested non-destructively in the lab similarly to how consumers might test fruit with their fingers before buying them.
June - July 2022 Winners
Tied for 1st place: Stephanie Botton (Dr. Ozias-Akins' lab) - Teamwork makes a field work: 1800 peanut plants were hand transplanted by both Dr. Ozias-Akins' and Dr. Corley Holbrook's teams in > 3 hours.
Tied for 1st place: Samantha Jo Wan (Dr. Chee's lab) - Beautiful Saturday morning spent collecting tissue samples at Gibbs Farm in Tifton.
April - May 2022 Winners
1st place: Holly Wright Presley (Dr. Missaoui's lab) - The majesty of the Queen of Forages: a half-sib alfalfa population displaying variation in flower color.
2nd place: Anne Frances Jarrell (Dr. Buell's lab) - Catharanthus roseus is known not only as a beautiful ornamental but also as a source of two cancer-fighting alkaloids, vinblastine, and vincristine.
3rd place: Qian Feng (Dr. van der Knaap's lab) - Cultivated beefsteak tomato flower (left) vs wild tomato flower (right). The fasciated flower of beefsteak tomato also has a much bigger fruit.
February - March 2022 Winners
1st place: Madhav Subedi (Dr. Mergoum's lab) - Paper, pen, and breeder's eye. Simple tools for plant breeding that gets better with experience.
2nd place: Kendall Lee (Dr. Missaoui's lab) - PCR product is being run on an agarose electrophoresis gel to tell us whether tall fescue plants are endophyte infected.
3rd place: Emile Barnes (Dr. Bertioli's lab) - During emasculation, anthers are removed from the peanut flower before pollination to form a cross.
November - December - January 2021/2022 Winners
1st place: Vinavi Lakshman (Dr. Mitchum's lab) - Soybean cyst nematode second stage juveniles inside soybean roots. Acid fuchsin stain turns nematodes inside roots to pink color.
2nd place: Stephanie Botton (Dr. Ozias-Akins' lab) - Visualization of peanut DNA during the precipitation step of a DNA extraction. Even after extracting numerous DNAs, this step still has a “wow” factor.
3rd place: Ethan Menke (Dr. Li's lab) - Sensor continuously monitoring soybean leaf respiration under drought stress.
September-October 2021 Winners
1st place: Samikshya Rijal (Dr. McGregor's lab) - Watermelon Breeding Program at McGregor Lab #controlledpollination
2nd place: Shreena Pradhan (Dr. Devos' lab) - An embedded cross section of Paspalum vaginatum leaves showing "papillae" that sequester sodium ions.
3rd place: Stephanie Botton (Dr. Ozias-Akins' lab) - Early Bird Gets the Worm - early peanut harvest during a foggy morning at Gibb's Farm in Tifton, GA during September, 2021.