The Rice That Helped America Grow

From the Avon Public Library:

Tuesday, September 15 at 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

A variety of rice named Carolina Gold was the first food product that America exported to Europe, and helped the coastal colonies achieve economic independence. Learn the legend of how this rice came to America, how West African ingenuity helped it thrive and become a local and international delicacy, and how it was almost lost forever before being revived by backyard enthusiasts in the past few years.

Presenter: Dr. Triplett is a plant microbiologist and molecular geneticist. She studies the DNA sequences of plant-infecting bacteria to answer questions about their virulence mechanisms and phylogenetic diversity, and to develop diagnostic tools for disease detection. In the past, her research has characterized the molecular interactions between Xanthomonas oryzae and rice, focusing on resistance to a few secreted proteins that act as toxins or transcriptional activators. She is now continuing that line of research on other plant pathogenic Xanthomonas species that infect a variety of crops.

Please register and a Zoom link will be sent to you before the event.

This press release was produced by the Avon Public Library. The views expressed here are the author’s own.