At Cornell AgriTech, graduate students play an important role in innovative plant breeding research. In this interview, we speak with Bahiya Zahl, a Ph.D. student in the lab of professor Larry Smart whose work in hemp genetics and breeding could help transform this versatile crop's future in agriculture. From sex determination studies to yield optimization, her research tackles key challenges facing the hemp industry today.
What drew you to the graduate student program at Cornell AgriTech?
I have always been passionate about plant science, but after completing my bachelor’s degree, I realized I wanted to focus on applied plant science. This led me to plant breeding, a field that perfectly aligns with my interests. Cornell stood out for its robust plant breeding program and strong hemp science research. After gaining experience in cannabis tissue culture, pursuing hemp breeding felt like a natural progression in my career. This ultimately led me to join Larry Smart’s hemp breeding program at Cornell AgriTech.
Explain your research in a few sentences in layman’s terms. What crops do you research?
I study hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), a versatile crop grown for cannabinoids, fiber and grain. My research focuses on the genetics of fiber quality and sex determination. Hemp is unique as one of the few dioecious crops with sex chromosomes. Dioecious refers to plant species that have distinct male and female reproductive organs on separate plants. In other words, an individual plant is either male or female, not both. This is in contrast to monoecious plants, which have both male and female reproductive structures on the same plant.
Understanding how sex is determined is crucial because it influences yield and quality. For example, all-female populations are necessary for high cannabinoid yields since pollination reduces cannabinoid production.
