Caitlin Dalton Email and Phone Number

I am a Master’s student at the University of Tennessee in the Departent of Plant Sciences working under the mentorship of Dr. David Butler. My passions for agriculture and environmental sustainability have motivated me to pursue a Master’s degree in Plant Sciences with a minor in Entomology and Plant Pathology. My thesis project: Roles of local Trichoderma spp. in reducing tomato Fusarium wilt and increasing phosphorus uptake. Beneficial soil fungi, such as the genus Trichoderma, are known to improve crop growth, stress tolerance, and disease resistance through multiple mechanisms. For example, many Trichoderma isolates are able to parasitize structures of many plant pathogenic fungi, can solubilize poorly-soluble soil nutrients such as phosphorus, and can induce crop resistance to plant pathogens. At the same time, there is little information on how Trichoderma-induced benefits to crops interact (i.e., nutrient uptake and disease resistance) or the magnitude of the nutrient solubilization benefit to crop production. In my M.S. work I will evaluate eight local isolates of Trichoderma (including T. asperellum, T. brevicompactum, T. hamatum, T. harzianum, and T. koningiopsis) for 1) potential to reduce tomato Fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici (Fol) and 2) potential to solubilize poorly soluble forms of soil P and increase crop P uptake in both wild and domesticated tomato genotypes.