He and Trigiano, along with seven other UT researchers, have worked to develop dogwood trees that can resist two fatal diseases, dogwood anthracnose and powdery mildew. Tuesday's night party gave UT a chance to introduce white-blossom Appalachian Spring, a special dogwood that resists dogwood anthracnose. The tree probably won't be released for commercial use for three years, as scientists work to build its population. UT researchers are now trying to cross Appalachian Spring with Cherokee Brave, a white-blossom tree with pink centered petals that resists powdery mildew. Windham and Trigiano hope the cross will produce a tree that can resist both diseases.
Federal money makes up a large percentage of their funding.
The team also gets money from the Tennessee nurseries, the experiment station, the Institute of Agriculture at UT and industries. The hats were a reminder to the Tennessee delegation of the researchers' trip. UT might get more federal money because of what dogwood researchers have found, Windham said. And when Windham and Trigiano aren't trying to find the cure to threatening dogwood diseases, or seeking funding to do so, they are in the classroom trying to train future scientists to do the same. On the agriculture campus, most professors are researchers.