“This is an advanced technology,” Mu said. “It stores readings from soil moisture, soil water potential, and soil oxygen sensors in the cloud and enables me to see the data in real-time through my computer. The sensors allow me to conduct my flood treatment in a more controlled way.” 

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, American farmers plant roughly 90 million acres of corn annually. Corn is one of the most produced crops worldwide, and it has uses beyond human and animal food. 

“The bioenergy in ethanol fuel mostly comes from corn,” Mu explained. “Other corn products include sweeteners, breakfast cereals, starch, and cooking oil; all these different components are critical in our current society, and many come from corn.”

Mu comes to UD following her Ph.D. and postdoctoral research at Iowa State University where she experienced the effects of extreme weather firsthand. In 2020, a derecho — a long-lived, widespread wind storm associated with rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms — plowed past her research field, damaging her corn and sorghum plants. Unlike the rotating wind of a hurricane, a derecho produces straight-line winds. The experience left an impression.

“The 2020 derecho swept through Iowa and Illinois in the north-central corn belt in August, during the food production period,” Mu underscored. “More than six million acres of corn and soybean fields and 100 million bushes worth of grain storage and processing infrastructure were destroyed.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that the 2020 derecho cost more than $11 billion, making it the most expensive thunderstorm event in modern history.
 

Discovering plant science

Mu first fell in love with plants during her first year as an undergraduate student. 

Mu says it’s easy for people to ignore plants because plants don’t run around the way animals do. She argues this is precisely what makes them interesting.

“Plant systems can be even more complex than animals because plants cannot move,” Mu emphasized. “They must adapt to the environment and have a system that allows them to survive under any circumstance in that location. Plants cannot escape.”

Mu recalls discussing human genetics over family dinners with her mother, a human physiology instructor. She was amazed by the way traits can be passed down from parents to children then vary among siblings. This genetic principle is the same in plants.

“I have found studying plants and genetics to be a beautiful combination,” Mu said.

During the Spring 2024 semester, Mu’s students explored this beautiful combination in her experimental course Introduction to Plant Breeding and Genetics (PLSC 367). The course covers using molecular markers to select traits, CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, and high-throughput phenotyping. It culminates in a group project dubbed “Breeding Your Favorite Plant Species,” where students take on the role of a breeding company and design a breeding project.

Mu’s next class, Plant Genes and Genome (PLSC 467/636), will run during the 2025 spring semester. This undergraduate and graduate class covers the techniques students need to perform their own research involving genetic analysis at the population level.

“I’ll teach more specific genetic analysis methods, including quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping, genome-wide association analysis (GWAS), and genomic selection,” Mu said.

When she is not teaching, Mu is busy with her research. She recently received two seed grants in collaboration with other faculty members in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is funding a collaboration between Mu, Qingwu (William) Meng, assistant professor of controlled-environment horticulture, and postdoctoral researcher Jeonghwa Kim.

“The project is to establish an optimum growing condition for corn in growth chambers,” Mu explained. “So we can study the interactions between corn’s genes with environmental stimuli under more controlled ways than in the fields.”

“Corn is typically grown in a field because it is a C4 plant,” Mu elaborated. “This type of plant needs higher light levels to perform photosynthesis efficiently.” 

Because a growth chamber is an entirely concealed structure, the UD team can control the temperature, water and artificial light the plants receive.

In collaboration with Alyssa Koehler, assistant professor and extension specialist on plant pathology, and Yin Bao, assistant professor of digital agriculture, Mu studies early vigor and Pythium tolerance in maize plants. Pythium is a plant pathogen that attacks plants under wet conditions. A Pythium infection can stunt plant growth and lead to root rot or plant death. With an increase in flooding due to climate change, understanding Pythium tolerance is crucial. A Hatch Research Capacity Seed Grant from the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences funds the collaboration.

“If the plants are more vigorous at the early stage, they might be more tolerant to Pythium,” Mu said. “I’m currently generating a doubled haploid population, which I can use to study genetics underlying early vigor and its connection with Pythium tolerance.”

When she’s not in the field with her corn, Mu can be found in her office writing manuscripts and grants or discussing projects with her lab members. Of course, she might be in the greenhouses, where she oversees a few experiments, or perhaps she’s working in the molecular lab. Luckily for Mu, everything is conveniently located in CANR’s Newark footprint. 

“I love that the field where I planted corn is so close to our building,” Mu exclaimed. “I can walk there in 10 minutes!”