On April 18th , a group of members from the UAS Team made the trip down to the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center (KARE), to take a tour of the facility. The tour was given by Dr. Andreas Westphal, who is an expert in nematodes and conducts research on sustainable nematode management in vine and tree crops. Westphal shared his knowledge of walnut trees and nematodes to the UAS team explaining the processes and importance of rootstock and tree grafting. In Westphal’s research, he maintains many walnut trees that have various amounts of nematodes present in the roots and soil, taking observations of which root stocks perform best and are the most resistant to the nematodes. Next semester the new UAS team will be visiting again to collect thermal images and data of the walnut trees, both with and without Nematodes present.
(Dr. Andreas Westphal talking about walnut trees with the UAS Team)
(Female walnut flower)
(Nematode extraction from soil samples)
(Using Microscope to see Nematodes)
(Viewing hundreds of Nematodes under the Microscope)
