Joan Barreto Ortiz

New research publication from our team - 12/7/23

Learn more about our research! A new, open access article by Joan Barreto Ortiz, Candice Hirsch, Nancy Jo Ehlke and Eric Watkins has been published in Plant Methods. This paper describes a method to quantify turfgrass inflorescence properties using computer imaging to provide a faster and less subjective way to phenotype, which can aid in plant breeding.

Barreto Ortiz, J., Hirsch, C.N., Ehlke, N.J. and Watkins, E. 2023. SpykProps: an imaging pipeline to quantify architecture in unilateral grass inflorescences. Plant Methods 19:125. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13007-023-01104-z [Open Access] 


Thesis defense - Joan Barreto Ortiz

a man wearing a graduation cap and gown

Please join us for the thesis defen


Master's student Joan Barreto Ortiz featured in CFANS News!

a man wearing a graduation cap and gown

Joan Barreto Ortiz, a Master'


Turfgrass Science Team at the 2021 ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting

The Turfgrass Science team from the University of Minnesota was well-represented at this year’s ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting held on November 7-10, 2021 in Salt Lake City, UT.  Two of our graduate students, Nicole Mihelich and Joan Barreto Ortiz, gave oral presentations there. Below are their presentation titles and abstracts.


Raspberry Pi projects to facilitate research

By Joan M. Barreto Ortiz


Turfgrass Science Team at the 2020 ASA-CSSA-SSSA Virtual Annual Meeting

The Turfgrass Science team from the University of Minnesota gave two presentations and presented two posters at this year’s ASA-CSSA-SSSA Virtual Annual Meeting. Below is a listing of the abstracts, along with links to the poster PDF files.


New research publications from our team - 9/29/20

Learn more about our research! Two new research articles from our group have been published in Crop Science.


A basic image analysis to measure seed size

By Joan Barreto Ortiz


Shattering is bad! But so is the way we measure it

By Joan Barreto Ortiz

I am a new graduate student on the Plant Breeding/Molecular Genetics track in the Applied Plant Sciences program at the University of Minnesota. I did my undergraduate degree in Agronomy at the Universidad del Tolima in Colombia, where I am originally from. One of my main objectives for my current project is to develop novel systems that attempt to understand the genetics of seed shattering—the seed loss due to detachment from the spike—in perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) seed production and strategies that can be used to breed for better seed retention.