PI Fritz awarded Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station Grant

PI Fritz, along with her co-PIs Nunziata, Hamby, and Dively were recently awarded an MAES grant to study Bt resistance in H. zea.  Helicoverpa zea is a pest of corn and cotton, and recent studies have show that it is evolving resistance to Bt-expressing transgenic crops.  This seed grant will allow our research groups to identify the diagnostic dose of Bt toxins which are lethal to susceptible laboratory strains, but allow for survivorship of field-collected populations.  Results from this award will help to establish assays that can be used to link the genes involved in resistance to resistance phenotypes.