Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

06/01/2026

As farmers look for more resilient options, drought-resistant crops like sorghum are gaining attention.

In a new Omaha News.Net story, reporter Mark Moran explores why Nebraska farmers are weighing a shift away from corn toward hardier alternatives. Danforth Center principal investigator Andrea Eveland makes the case for sorghum — a crop closely related to corn that tolerates drought and heat while requiring fewer inputs like nitrogen-based fertilizers.

05/28/2026

Dr. Nadia Shakoor recently sat down with Fox 2 meteorologist John Fuller on KPLR to talk about how research and technology are helping farmers to keep pace with growing food demand and unpredictable weather.

At the center of the conversation? The PheNode system — a field-based sensor platform developed with Agrela Ecosystems that continuously monitors rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind, soil moisture, and more. All of that data can be analyzed and modeled to help farmers understand crop stress and make better decisions in real time.

05/26/2026

Meet the SMURF. 🌽

No, not those Smurfs. This one stands for Sorghum and Maize Under Rotational Force, and it's one of our favorite new pieces of science equipment. Watch it in action below as it measures how flexible a corn plant's root system is.

Here's the why: wind damage to corn is getting worse. Storms are stronger and more frequent, and when they hit a conventional cornfield, tall stalks are no match for high-speed straight-line winds. Plants topple. Stalks snap. Harvests are lost.

But what if corn was just... shorter?

Danforth Center scientist Erin Sparks, PhD, and her collaborators at Bayer Crop Science just published research showing that short-stature maize hybrids, that is, plants bred or engineered to grow about 25–30% shorter than conventional corn, experience wind damage at less than half the rate of regular corn. Across 444 field locations over three growing seasons, the difference was dramatic. At the worst-hit sites, short-stature plants kept producing grain where tall hybrid fields couldn't even be harvested.

The SMURF helped explain why: shorter corn plants also tend to have more flexible root systems, which means they can absorb and recover from wind forces that knock conventional plants flat.

It's smart science with real-world stakes. Corn is the world's most widely grown cereal crop. Helping it withstand a stormier climate is exactly what plant science is for.

05/22/2026

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05/21/2026

St. Louis agtech company Agrela Ecosystemss is taking its PheNode® environmental sensor platform national.

Founded by plant scientists at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Agrela launched the PheNode commercially in 2023 and has already surpassed half a million dollars in sales. The platform delivers real-time, research-grade data on air temperature, humidity, soil conditions, rainfall, wind, light, and more.

Now, with a $500K funding round closed in February, the company is scaling its St. Louis-based manufacturing and expanding its sales presence to meet demand that has grown across agricultural research, specialty crop production, and transportation infrastructure — including a partnership with The Ray, a nonprofit advancing sustainable highway infrastructure, which has deployed PheNode along interstate rights-of-way in Georgia and Washington state.

Co-founder and CSO Nadia Shakoor, PhD, who recently received the inaugural Innovator Award from The Academy of Science–St. Louis, built PheNode to fill a gap she felt every day as a researcher. The fact that it's now serving industries well beyond agriculture is exactly what it looks like when foundational research meets real-world need.

05/20/2026

Happy World Bee Day! 🐝

Did you know that the Danforth Center campus is home to many bees? Within our reconstructed Missouri prairie, we house several apiaries that are always buzzing with activity. And these particular apiaries are special in the St. Louis region, as they are some of the only ones that are used for education.

Earlier this month, the Eastern Missouri Beekeepers Association (EMBA) held one of their “open apiary days,” where beekeepers of all experience levels were invited to come and get hands-on experience checking the status of the hives and keeping them healthy. And in turn, the pollinators inside help keep our ecosystem healthy as well.

05/19/2026

Thank you to the St. Louis Business Journal for spotlighting the appointment of our incoming Chief Operating Officer, Derek Rapp.

As the Danforth Center's President, Giles Oldroyd, expressed in the article, Derek's strategic vision, operational discipline, and passion for mission-driven science will help accelerate our work to translate plant science into real-world solutions for food security, sustainability, and human health.

Read the full story here:

St. Louis Business Journal reports: The Danforth Center has named Derek K. Rapp as Chief Operating Officer. Rapp brings 40+ years of nonprofit, biotech, and venture capital leadership to the role.

05/18/2026

Big news: Derek Rapp is joining the Danforth Center as our new Chief Operating Officer.

For many of you, Derek needs no introduction. A St. Louis native, longtime civic leader, and friend of this institution, Derek served as chair of our Friends Committee from 2008 to 2010 and considered our founding chair, the late Dr. William H. Danforth, a mentor. He has been part of this community for a long time.

He also brings an extraordinary record of leadership: as president and CEO of JDRF International, as the founder and CEO of a life sciences startup, and as a senior executive at Monsanto. He joins us from RiverVest Venture Partners, where he has been investing in the next generation of life sciences innovation.

We are excited to welcome Derek to the Danforth Center and look forward to what we will build together.

05/18/2026

Meet Sabita Gyawali, our Committee for Scientific Training and Mentoring (CSTM) Member of the Month for May 2026!

Sabita is a research associate in the Bravo Lab. She joined the Danforth Center in January 2025 because the lab's focus on plant-microbe interactions and fungal biology aligns closely with her research interests.

Sabita works on improving the in-vitro growth of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), maintaining AMF and root cultures, and exploring how AMF can be used to enhance plant growth and nutrient uptake. She is best known for designing and troubleshooting in vitro plant-microbe interaction experiments.

In the future, Sabita plans to grow into a lead independent research role working on sustainable agriculture. Outside the lab, Sabita enjoys cooking and traveling.

05/15/2026

Danforth Center President Giles Oldroyd has been announced as a speaker at the 2026 Norman E. Borlaug International Dialogue, Oct. 20–22 in Des Moines. He'll be joined by Danforth Center Board Director Cary Fowler, the 2024 World Food Prize Laureate.

The Borlaug Dialogue is one of the most influential annual gatherings in global food security, convening scientists, policymakers, farmers, business leaders and innovators to translate urgency into action. This year's theme, Before Hunger Wins, marks the 40th anniversary of the World Food Prize.

Giles was named a 2024 Top Agri-food Pioneer by the World Food Prize Foundation. His participation alongside Dr. Fowler reflects the Danforth Center's role in the global conversation on food security.

"Forty years after the World Food Prize was established, hunger remains one of the most urgent and solvable problems we face." — Giles Oldroyd