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James Schnable

@szintri.bsky.social
617 followers 207 following 131 posts

Plant biologist and computer geek. Prof. at University of Nebraska.

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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Some of the Nebraska cousins. "Barren" (no ear) maize plants are relatively common, particularly with smaller or less vigorous plants. Ears without tassels though, that's a much rarer phenotype to observe!
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Remembering and grateful for the teachers and mentors who shaped me. And also thankful for my trainees, past and present, some of whom introduced me to a day set aside honor those same guides. Happy Guru Purnima!
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
Check out the impact of the post-pandemic surge in review paper publications. Visualization of the citation histories of seventeen plant science faculty.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Wait what? Congratulations! I know was a long road to get here but you’re gonna do great.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Just had one of those great professor moments where I needed to explain something and had the perfect ear of corn to show what I was talking about right at hand.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
The days that make me appreciate living in Lincoln Nebraska.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
It's finally happening! After multiple rainouts and a redesign of our whole planting workflow, our nearly 1,000 line sorghum diversity panel in going into the ground today. Big thank you to Chidu, Kyle, Jon and the UNL Agronomy farm crew.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
For the first time as a prof, I’m mentoring students aiming for faculty jobs in India. I understand which factors matter the most for US and Chinese faculty hiring—but can anyone help me figure out what we should be emphasizing to be competitive at Indian universities?
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
Oops and here's the link to the paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Assessing the Impact of Yield Plasticity on Hybrid Performance in Maize
Improving crop resilience in the face of increasingly extreme and unpredictable weather and reduced access to agricultural inputs such as nitrogen fertilizer and water will require an improved unders...
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
Protecting against downside risk doesn’t have to come at the expense of continued increases in the yield potential. No evidence of a tradeoff between yield stability and maximum yield in an analysis of hybrid performance across 34 environments. New pub led by @jensinadavis.bsky.social
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
This is the projection. So at least a chance the final budget could still be something different. And given your interests you'd also be applying for USDA funded postdocs which are still going to be cut, but perhaps less than the NSF funded ones. But even so, yes, terrible news.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
National Science Foundation's forecast for how many fewer scientists, postdocs, and graduate students we'll be able to support in 2026.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Did anyone else get a "we've been asked to pause issuance of grant funding during the transition of government" e-mail from USDA-NIFA this morning?
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Just had a no cost extension request denied with only 14 days before grant funds expire. If you've been waiting months to hear back don't assume it's just the government being slow to process things and everything will ultimately work out.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
Paper came back from review after seven months. The editor (not the reviewers) tells me: 1) Redo the GWAS using a different statistical model in a different software package. 2) Add a brand new RNA-seq experiment and results. 3) Please submit your revised manuscript within 14 days. 🤷
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
In January of 2023 Waqar Ali arrived in Lincoln with no coding background (and no winter coat). Today he published a paper using GWAS to identify genes linked to variation in how corn photosynthesizes, complete with reverse genetics validation in arabidopsis. doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
Never got the chance. Hopefully someday.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
This seems like a shockingly large effect size unless "professionally edited" is confounded with a bunch of other variables that would have a big impact on paper acceptance rates with or without the editing.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Still get excited each time I see a Waymo.
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Reposted by James Schnable
Journal of Experimental Botany @jxbotany.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
🧬🌾📊🔍 RESEARCH 🔍 📊🌾🧬 'Unveiling shared genetic regulators of plant architectural and biomass yield traits in the Sorghum Association Panel' - Singh et al. doi.org/10.1093/jxb/... @szintri.bsky.social #PlantScience 🧪
Natural variations in architectural traits. Phenotypic distribution of plant architectural traits in the Sorghum Association Panel across two growing seasons (2020 and 2021). The mean value of each trait for each growing season is depicted as dotted lines on the respective plots.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Students say they’ll keep working on papers after graduation. I tell them I'll understand when (not if) they don’t. Life happens. But there are exceptions. Ramesh left my lab nearly a year ago, but kept pushing. His 1st thesis chapter was just published. bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com
Transcripts and genomic intervals associated with variation in metabolite abundance in maize leaves under field conditions - BMC Genomics
Plants exhibit extensive environment-dependent intraspecific metabolic variation, which likely plays a role in determining variation in whole plant phenotypes. However, much of the work seeking to use...
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
I helped launch and run a startup commercializing technology that could identify the fields where more fertilizer wouldn't increase crop productivity and save farmers money. SBIR funding from NSF is how we made the leap from concept to product and acquisition.
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Reposted by James Schnable
Zhikai Liang @shanwai1234.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Preparing 50 trays with 4,800 slots for our first large-scale sampling effort
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Grateful to work at a university that has on campus cornfields. Greenhouses and growth chamber are good and all. But sometimes need something more. Our lab will be planting our first proper summer corn nursery since 2021 this year.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
I'm two decades late but really entertained by the term "mFruits."
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
I’m still working out how to prepare properly. But preparation side it is just a cool looking vegetable!
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
Mapping QTL is domesticated cheese molds.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Generic bitter melon vs Indian bitter melon…
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
I’m pretty sure the dire scientist phenotype spontaneously evolves from other types multiple times. Dire scientists emergence is the carcinization of academia.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
Spring in Nebraska. Highly recommended.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
Frank's an outstanding scientist and he's assembled a really cool team at Bonn. Definitely check this out.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
The folks in the lab are calling this one "Christmas Tree sorghum." (Photo by Kyle Linders)
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 23/03/2025
Current students and the students of one of my former trainees (Ravi Mural) together at ASPB midwest. If I'm still professor-ing a decade from now perhaps I'll be meeting and working with some of the students trained or scientists mentored by the folks in this photo.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
Das Leben ist kostbar. Lass es nicht einfach vorbeiziehen.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
生命虽然短暂,却无比珍贵。别让它悄悄溜走。
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
ज़िंदगी छोटी भी है और अनमोल भी — इसे महसूस करो, इसे चाहो, इसे ज़ाया मत होने दो।
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Gorgeous end to a productive snow day.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
I take my responsibilities as an advisor and mentor seriously. But, sometimes, advisors need positive feedback too.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
The biggest impact I'll ever have as a professor is the people I help train. Felt wonderful to see so many current trainees and lab alumni together in one place this past weekend at the 2025 Maize Genetics conference.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Ed Buckler awarded the 2025 McClintock Prize in absentia. Two thirds of the room standing by the end of “if you were trained by Ed, stand up. If you were trained by one of those people, stand up. If Ed’s work has shaped your career, stand up.”
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
"Don't worry about papers. There will always be more papers." Jianming Yu on 3D reaction norms to understand the functions of individual genes and how crops will perform in future, unobserved environments. Great plenary!
Mu, Q., Guo, T., Li, X., & Yu, J. (2022). Phenotypic plasticity in plant height shaped by interaction between genetic loci and diurnal temperature range. New Phytologist, 233(4), 1768-1779.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
Double cross hybrid pedigree and Nebraska farmers visiting the university field trials.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
Found a 1940s era video from the Nebraska maize genetics/corn breeding program in the university archives.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Find yourself* graduate students who will stand up and tell you when you need to tone down an angry sounding comment in a reason to reviewers document. *Actually train them. A lot of this is making sure the people you mentor feel safe telling their advisor: "You're making a mistake."
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Twenty year startup.
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
Had the honor of introducing my colleague, collaborator, and friend, Prof. Jinliang Yang, at the seminar marking his appointment as the next Gardner Endowed Professor of Quantitative Genetics. We are extremely fortunate to have Jinliang on the faculty here at the University of Nebraska.
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Reposted by James Schnable
PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
To US colleagues who have lost or are in imminent danger of losing their jobs: please DM whether we can accommodate your research.
German and US flags
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
Thank you, Vijay!
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James Schnable @szintri.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
If I wanted to support a graduate student research assistant stipend in Mexico, Brazil, or India what are reasonable amounts of money to budget? Here (Nebraska/USA) a PhD GRA receives $28,000/year but total cost is $63,400/yr (includes tuition, health, indirect).
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