Plant Cold Hardiness: From the Laboratory to the Field Tapa dura - 2009

Dr. Lawrence V. Gusta is a B.S.A.and Masters graduate from the University of Manitoba and a Ph.D. graduate from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Gusta has conducted leading research on plant cold hardiness for the last 40 years. He has published over 125 papers in peer reviewed journals, edited 2 books and authored numerous book chapters in the areas of biochemistry, biophysics, physiology, agronomy, genetics and molecular biology. He is one of the last few researchers that has seen research evolve over the ast 40 years in the area of cold hardiness that we know it today.

Dr. Michael Wisniewski is a graduate of Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire. He has conducted research in the field of plant cold hardiness for over 25 years and serves as a Lead Scientist for the USDA-ARS, Appalachian Fruit Research Station conducting research on the functional genomics of environmental stress. He is considered a leading authority on cold hardiness in temperate fruit trees and other woody plants specializing in the areas of ice nucleation, deep supercooling, and cold-regulated gene transcription. He has published over 80 peer reviewed articles and numerous book chapters on the subject of cold hardiness.

Dr. Karen Tanino is an Associate Professor with the University of Saskatchewan. She is a graduate of Oregon State University and the University of Guelph. Her 20+ year research work has focused on the physiological interactions between the plant and its environment with abiotic stress and water as central themes to her research. Recent research on low temperature stress examines the role of predicted temperature shifts on subsequent growth cessation, dormancy induction and cold hardiness in temperate deciduous woody plants. She has chaired, co-chaired numerous conferences, teaches a graduate level course on plant abiotic stress and has actively published in this field.