#KUFieldWorks: Monitoring plant disease to protect Kansas prairies

Editor’s note: Fieldwork provides invaluable insights about real-world environments and processes, expanding and reinforcing what researchers learn in classrooms, labs and collections. KU faculty, staff and students across a spectrum of disciplines take their inquiry directly to rivers, prairies, dig sites, glaciers, islands, archives and more. Through the #KUFieldWorks series, we'll join them on their adventures.

Q&A with ecology & evolutionary biology graduate student Yalone Woodruff

Understanding plant disease could help protect prairies in Kansas. One plant being studied is rosinweed (Silphium integrifolium), a drought-tolerant perennial prairie plant with sandpapery leaves and sunflower-like blooms. Rosinweed is susceptible to silphium rust, a disease caused by fungal pathogens. To better understand how disease spreads through plant communities, ecology & evolutionary biology graduate student Yalone Woodruff and his team in the Bever/Schultz lab are transplanting a susceptible rosinweed into the center of controlled plots and surrounding it with resistant rosinweeds and different combinations of native prairie species. Over the coming years, they will monitor the susceptible plants for signs of infection to determine whether the resistant plants and diverse plant communities can help reduce disease transmission, an effect known as pathogen dilution.

What methods, approaches, experiments, etc. are you using?

I currently spend a lot of my time working on the new Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease project that was introduced in the summer of 2025. This project encompasses 4 hexagonal blocks of 60 plots each, with plans to add two more blocks next summer. In each plot, there are 19 plants total with the middle of each plot being a susceptible S. integrifolium (roseinweed), except for monocultures.

There are two genotypes of S. integrifolium in this experiment, with one being susceptible to silphium rust and the other being resistant. Silphium rust is the main plant pathogen we are tracking; it is a fungal foliar pathogen that can impact photosynthesis of the host, as well as the overall health of the host. There are also 10 diluter species, five being asters and five being non-asters. The diluter species act as plant pathogen buffers for the S. integrifolium. The composition of diluter species and S. integrifolium is manipulated across the entire experiment to see how plant pathogens spread with different plant community compositions.

Data collection is comprised of presence/absence data where we look at every S. integrifolium to see if silphium rust is present or absent and disease severity data where we quantify the severity of the disease of every S. integrifolium using a 0-100 scale.

Overall, the main goal of the experiment is to test if plant pathogen spread is dependent on plant community composition or host genetics — or both — and to what degree. This experiment is currently a multi-institutional experiment being replicated in two other locations, including The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, and Danforth Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

Why does your study matter to your field or for society?

Plant pathogen dynamics and how they will change in the future are surrounded by uncertainty with the development of climate change, so understanding the mechanisms and pathways that plant pathogens spread is very important to mitigate additional loss of biodiversity in our prairies. S. integrifolium (our target plant species) has been domesticated for oil and forage purposes as it is a better substitute than other annual alternatives for various ecological reasons (increased carbon uptake, decreased run-off, and overall improved soil health), so understanding the pathogens impacting S. integrifolium is important when it becomes more common in agricultural practices.

What do you enjoy most about being in the field?

I love field season for many reasons, but my favorite part about being in the field is the calmness of the prairie — and the tree frogs!

What are some memorable (funny, scary, surprising, etc.) moments from the field?

One very memorable moment from field season last year was my close encounter with a copperhead. I think he liked me because he ended up giving me a kiss — and the ER was my next destination. Turns out I was the first snake bite in over 20 years! So lucky me.

When is fieldwork frustrating, challenging or overwhelming?

The hot summer weather can always pose a challenge mentally and physically as data collection can take the whole day.

How does fieldwork complement the work you do elsewhere?

Since data collection requires consistency and integrity, I believe I have adopted these characteristics in other aspects of my life. 

First photo: University of Kansas researchers conduct fieldwork in prairies, rivers, streams and mountains. The #KUFieldWorks series follows researchers on their fieldwork adventures.

Second photo: Yalone Woodruff discusses his experiment for incoming undergraduate students.

Third photo: A bee on rosinweed.

Fourth photo: Plots of rosinweed with wooden stakes surrounding them.