The Cornell Willow Team

Our multidisciplinary team of willow researchers in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences works closely with Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) educators across New York State to transform research results into commercial applications.

Larry Smart

The Larry Smart Lab

Larry is an Associate Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics in the Horticultural Section, Cornell University, at Cornell AgriTech (NYSAES) in Geneva, NY. He is a plant geneticist and physiologist who directs the largest shrub willow breeding program in North America established in 1998 at SUNY-ESF in Syracuse and moved to Cornell in 2009. The work in Larry’s lab is focused on developing and testing new willow varieties that produce high yields on marginal land for bioenergy, as well as studying the basic genetic mechanisms that determine variation and regulation of traits important for bioenergy and biofuels production. Contact Larry by email or visit his profile at CALS.

chris smart

Chris Smart

The Chris Smart Lab

Chris is the Director of the School of Integrative Plant Science and a Professor in the Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section with a broad background in disease diagnosis, epidemiology, population genetics, and resistance mechanisms across many taxa of pathogens.  Her main interests are in diseases of cucurbits, solanaceous crops, and other vegetables, but she has begun to study leaf rusts (Melampsora spp.) that cause disease on shrub willow, including population diversity and mechanisms of resistance.