Kezar Making Strides in Ag Research
Published: Friday, July 14, 2023
Sarah Kezar is making headway in the field of research for farmers across the U.S. and around the world.
Through years of research, the New Paris native has found a way to effectively attack a herbicide resistant weed.
The 26-year-old grew up in 4-H, raising beef animals and riding in the saddle club. She was involved in FFA, too, and was on Fairfield FFA's 2014 livestock judging champion team, placed third at the North American International Livestock Exposition (NAILE) and went to the world championship in the United Kingdom.
All the experience she had with animals led her to Oklahoma State University to study animal science. Before college, she had even worked with a veterinarian. Everything leading up to college pushed her toward studying and caring for livestock.
"I always knew I wanted to do research," she said.
During her freshman year, she began studying cattle, taking blood samples, recording cattle respiratory data under heat stress, collecting liver samples, etc. But she soon realized she didn't want to study that subject, so she widened her scope to find her passion. Kezar found her niche after an internship with Helena in Millersburg.
"I realized I really liked agronomy," she said.
This new passion for agronomy introduced her to weed science, where she has done extensive research concerning Palmer amaranth, a herbicide resistant weed prevalent in the South which has spread into the Midwest.
The summer after her sophomore year, Kezar switched her major from animal science to plant and soil science, placing her on a track that would lead to Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University (Texas A&M) and, eventually, Cornell University.
She got her master's degree in 2020 from Oklahoma State University, after studying soybean response to heat and moisture stress.
"That was really cool, and, again, it was important work, but I wanted more," Kezar said. "I wanted to really dive into agronomy and what is really attacking our crops on like a global scale, and that's weeds."
It was at Texas A&M that Kezar met Muthukumar Bagazathiannan while she was studying for her PhD, who turned her attention toward the stubborn weed that is terrorizing Texas cotton fields. She joined Bagazathiannan's weed ecology program in June 2020 and finished her degree in less than three years.
Her doctoral dissertation is based on four major studies concerning Palmer amaranth, all of which evaluate a different way to trick the weed into reducing its reproduction, which is currently (at most) one million seeds per head.
Challenges she faced heading into this study included familiarizing herself with cotton, pushing through an overwhelming amount of data and settling into the pace of a PhD student's life.
Through countless hours of research and field work, Kezar found one strategy for reducing Palmer amaranth reproduction that rose above the rest. Currently, her solution is up for a patent, so few details can be shared at this point. However, the proposed patent uses red and far-red light to manipulate the germination process of Palmer amaranth. This means that under certain light conditions, the weed is less likely to produce seeds. Kezar found a way to apply the spectrum of light to achieve this.
Her success with Palmer amaranth has opened another door for her in a post-doctorate position at Cornell University. She received a National Institution for Food and Agriculture post-doctoral Fellowship, which is only awarded to 20-30 individuals each year. The fellowship awarded Kezar with two years of fully funded research to study parthenium hysterophorus, more commonly, parthenium.
This weed is prevalent in the U.S., specifically in the South.
"It is starting to spread more northward. And with climate change, we're going to have increasingly warmer temperatures, that is going to move the growing region more northward over time, which is exactly what we saw happen with Palmer amaranth.
The species is being used at a model for all invasive or herbicide-resistant weeds. Kezar is searching for trends in plant response to factors in climate change such as air temperature, moisture, carbon dioxide levels, etc. in competition with crops such as corn and soybeans.
Kezar is going to study a parthenium population from Texas, India, Israel and Australia. She hopes to find what factors give the weed an advantage over crops, their response to climate change in different cropping systems and what management practices best address the weed presence.
"I'm going to be studying, basically, weed ecology under climate change for my post doctorate, and that's what I want to study for my career, as well, because I think that's really the big problem we're going see and keep seeing," she said.
Through her various studies, Kezar has been awarded several fellowships and honors. Three major fellowships include: the FFAR Doctorate Fellowship, Bayer Encompass Fellowship (awarded with the Crop Science Society of America) and the NIFA Post-Doctoral Fellowship.
Other honors she has received include:
• Texas A&M University Merit Fellow
• Gerald O. Mott Award
• Outstanding PhD Student, awarded by the Texas Plant Protection Assn.
• Outstanding Masters Student, awarded three times
But the awards are not Kezar's focus. The research is both rewarding and fun for her, she added.
"I've always known I wanted to do research as a scientist," she said. It was just a matter of perspective.
Kezar thanks her local 4-H, FFA and community members for helping her get started in agriculture and ag research. From animal science to weed studies, they have always backed her with encouragement.
"Now I have something I can give back to farmers," Kezar said.
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