The Ohio State University graduate students and Dr. Richard Dick, Professor of Microbiology from the School of Environmental and Natural Resources at OSU will be accompanying the team as well.
The trip will begin by the team traveling to Dakar, capital city of Senegal, West Africa and then travel to eastern Sahel region for two months to study improving agricultural productivity threatened with desertification, which is essentially soil degradation.
The group’s objective will be to study how the woody Sahel shrubs co-exist with row crops. In addition, they will be able to lift water hydraulically from more than 30 meters below the soil surface.
CSU students, OSU graduates and local scientists will be conducting experiments examining the role of soil microorganisms in this biologically based cropped agrecosystem.
An experienced interdisciplinary team in molecular microbiology, soil physics, plant ecology and agronomy have assembled and ready to take on this project since the spring of 2011.
CSU faculty that will be traveling with the students include Drs. Cadance Lowell, CSU Biology Professor, and Krishna Kumar Nedunuri, Chair of the Department of Water Resource Management. Both professors are working with senior Water Resource Management major and recent graduate Thaddeus McCants, senior Biology major Owen Cofim and sophomore Biology major Ariel Jackson throughout the past year in preparation for the trip.
