Pioneering Sustainable Solutions for Fruit Growers Through Research

Jul 30, 2025

By Denise Attaway

Johanna Wesche is making waves in the world of agricultural science with her groundbreaking research on sustainable disease management in fruit crops.

Wesche is from the village of Gross Laferde in Lower Saxony in northern Germany. She will complete her graduate studies at Clemson University in August after studying under the mentorship of Guido Schnabel, a plant pathologist in the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences (CAFLS) Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences.

She is preparing to take the next step in her academic career by transitioning into a postdoctoral position. Her long-term goal is to lead a research and Cooperative Extension Service program and establish a lab dedicated to developing science-based solutions for growers.

“My dream is to help solve real-world problems in agriculture,” Wesche said. “I want to continue working in academia where I can combine research, teaching and outreach to make a meaningful impact.”

At Clemson, Wesche honed critical skills to serve her well in her future endeavors. She credits Schnabel for helping her become a stronger scientific writer and more effective communicator.

Source : clemson.edu

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.