Welcome to the Department
Welcome to the Department of Plant Pathology at Kansas State University! Our department is composed of a family of faculty, staff, and students with diverse interests and expertise but a common goal to understand and improve plant health.
We have established an internationally recognized excellence in an array of programs including:
- Disease ecology, epidemiology, diagnostics, and management
- Disease resistance, plant genetics & genomics, biotechnology
- Pathogen and microbe biology & genetics
- Plant-microbe interactions and plant-vector-microbe interactions
We focus on crops and microbes important to the Kansas economy and global food security plus key model systems.
We are home to:
- Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic - our extension team provides diagnostic support and management recommendations to growers across Kansas.
- Great Plains Diagnostic Network - one of five national centers for detection and rapid response to introductions of potentially destructive pathogens.
- Wheat Genetic and Genomic Resources Center - a premier and internationally recognized center of excellence for basic and applied research on this essential crop.
- Fungal Genetics Stock Center - provides strains and other material and is leading the transition into the genome-enabled microbiology era with new approaches to material and information resource integration and management.
- International Fusarium Workshop - an annual event, held alternately in Manhattan and an overseas location. It is a workshop in which Fusarium researchers from around the world can come for a week of intensive hands-on training.
Are you interested in pursuing graduate education at K-State?
You can explore the Plant Pathology Graduate Program. In addition, many of our faculty mentor graduate students through the Interdepartmental Genetics Program.
