Penn State’s Block and Bridle Club won three awards at the National Block and Bridle Club’s 105th Convention, which took place Feb. 3-5 in Nashville, Tennessee. This year’s event was hosted by Middle Tennessee State University in conjunction with CattleCon, the largest annual event and trade show for the U.S. cattle industry.
Zachary Newsome, a graduate student in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, has been named a 2025 Dr. James Watson Fellow by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.
David Huff, professor of turfgrass breeding and genetics at Penn State, recently earned the Research Innovator Award through the College of Agricultural Sciences for the research and entrepreneurial leadership that led to the founding of his startup, PennPoa. To launch his turfgrass startup, Huff utilized Penn State entrepreneurial resources.
Implementing novel management practices in dairy farming, one of the commonwealth’s major agricultural industries, could help alleviate a large source of both nutrient pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, according to a multidisciplinary team led by researchers at Penn State.
Katie McLaughlin, a graduate of the College of Agricultural Sciences, brings with her a lifelong connection to agriculture to her current role in the Pennsylvania Governor’s Office of Transformation and Opportunity.
Several Penn State students used their experience in research and storytelling to advocate for federally funded research and take top prizes in the Science Coalition’s 2025 Alyse Gray Parker Memorial Student Video Challenge.
Penn State Extension has unveiled a new artificial intelligence-powered tool, called Tilva, at the 2025 Pennsylvania Farm Show, aimed at giving farmers around-the-clock access to research-based guidance.
Penn State's agricultural and extension education program was well represented at this year’s National Association of Agricultural Educators National Convention, where multiple faculty, students and alumni participated in workshops and were recognized with awards.
The Center for Plant Excellence, a new initiative supporting Pennsylvania’s plant industries, announced recipients of its 2025-26 grants, awarding $125,000 across seven projects.
Megan Zipprich, an animal science major in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, was among the 10 recipients of the All-American Livestock Judging Award during the National Collegiate Livestock Judging Contest, held in November in Louisville, Kentucky.
Five students in Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, for a week-long immersion in global food security at the World Food Prize event.
At the Pennsylvania Farm Show, to be held Jan. 10-17, 2026, in Harrisburg, faculty and extension educators from Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences will offer interactive activities and expert guidance on topics ranging from mental wellness and food preservation to invasive species and water quality.
To help apple growers achieve such precise management, researchers at Penn State are developing an automated, robotic weed-management system.
In this video, join President Neeli Bendapudi as she visits the College of Agricultural Sciences to learn about an experiential learning experience made possible through the power of partnership that is connecting ag students with a hands-on opportunity in sustainable farming. Watch the video for a behind-the-scenes look at this unique student opportunity.
Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences recognized exceptional achievements in research during its fourth annual Research Awards Ceremony held Oct. 28 at the Hintz Family Alumni Center on the University Park campus.
To help shape the future of agricultural education and innovation, Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has convened a new Dean’s Leadership Council — a distinguished group of leaders committed to advancing the college’s mission through teaching, research and extension.
Penn State undergraduate Emma Chaplin has been named a finalist for a 2026 Rhodes Scholarship, one of the most selective postgraduate awards for U.S. students.
A novel technique developed by researchers at Penn State has revealed that activity matters more than abundancy for which soil microbes can help plants with nutrient uptake and disease resistance.
Penn State doctoral candidate Sahil Pawar studies how environmental stressors, primarily salty soil — a problem often overlooked in agriculture — affect the relationships between plants and insects.
Growing winter wheat for both grain and straw production is common in poultry farms in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region, where grain is used for feed and straw is used for animal bedding. Grain yield can be improved by spraying plants with a regulator that halts vertical growth and makes them less prone to falling over, a phenomenon farmers call “lodging” that can greatly reduce grain yields. A team of researchers at Penn State investigated the effect of a growth regulator on straw yield and quality.
Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered precision agriculture tools can help growers better manage their orchards by reducing waste, increasing resilience and helping guide decisions about water use, fertilizer application and pest control, according to researchers at Penn State. However, the team said, not enough agricultural scientists are trained to develop and use these tools in real-world farming situations. An project underway in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences aims to ease that shortage by training three doctoral degree students.
Agricultural leadership took the spotlight at the Penn State Ag Council’s fall meeting in State College, where the council honored the recipients of its 2025 Leadership Awards.
In spring 2026, the College of Agricultural Sciences’ Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering will launch ABSM 497: Conservation Management, a course designed to help students understand natural resource concerns across Pennsylvania’s landscape, with an emphasis on soil and water conservation.
In September, turfgrass students from Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to volunteer at the 2025 U.S. Mid-Amateur Golf Championship.
Roughly a quarter of adults in the U.S. are caring for elderly family members or children with an illness or disability — and sometimes both at the same time. Researchers at Penn State led an expansive study of caregiver well-being and found that the type of geographic location and individual circumstances can impact a caregiver’s health, comfort and happiness even more than their state’s family care policies.
Government and industry stakeholders got a literal taste of the future of agriculture by sampling hydroponically grown greens at one of several presentations during the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences’ annual Legislative Research Tour, held Sept. 25 at the University Park campus.
Caroline Hunter, a senior majoring in environmental resource management in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, had the opportunity to grow her knowledge of environmental policy during a summer internship with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
In a development that could help protect one of the world's most beloved agricultural commodities, a research team at Penn State has successfully created disease-resistant cacao plants using gene-editing technology. According to the researchers, the innovation promises to help resolve a significant problem for the global chocolate industry, worth over $135 billion annually, which faces threat from the phytophthora species, a fungal-like pathogen that gives rise to the destructive black pod disease that can cause yield losses of up to 30% worldwide.
Organic beekeeping can support healthy and productive honey bee colonies, and a new study led by researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences found that adopting organic honey bee colony management is not only profitable, but in some cases, it can be even more profitable than conventional management.
Elizabeth Karcher, a Penn State alumna and a professor and undergraduate program coordinator at Purdue University, has been named the new associate dean for undergraduate education in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, effective Sept. 16.
