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About Us
The Department of Botany and Plant Sciences encompasses all areas of scholarship involving plant science. This includes undergraduate and graduate instruction and mentorship, fundamental and applied research, and dissemination of research-based information and technologies beyond the academic community.
As one of the largest academic departments at UCR, the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences participates in two bachelor's degree programs and offers a master's degree program in Plant Biology with two tracks, Botany or Plant Science, and Ph.D. programs in Plant Biology and Plant Genetics. The department has strong programs in basic plant cell biology, responses of plants to environmental stresses, plant ecology, genetics, genomics, and evolution. The department houses the Center for Plant Cell Biology, which is the Nation's first Research Center devoted exclusively to Plant Cell Biology.
These strengths in basic research complement applied research programs that use the traditional tools of botany and the new technologies of genomics to meet the evolving needs of California's $27 billion agricultural industry in addressing the challenges, climate change and new pest and disease by developing new varieties and crop management strategies. Cooperative Extension specialists serve as the bridges between discoveries made in the department's laboratories and greenhouses and growers who will put the new knowledge to work for such commodities as avocado, citrus, wheat, vegetable crops, turfgrass, and ornamental and urban landscape plants.
Administration Offices
Location: Batchelor Hall, 2nd Floor
Hours: 8:00 am - 12:00 pm; 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Phone: (951) 827-4619
Fax: (951) 827-4437
E-mail: bpschair@ucr.edu
Map: Campus Map (Batchelor Hall is #501)
Directions: Link to directions
Headline News
UC Riverside Plant Scientist’s Research Spawns New Discoveries Showing How Crops Survive Drought
Junior professor’s breakthrough launches unprecedented number of publications in high-profile journals
(November 18, 2009)
Abscisic acid (purple molecule at center) inside its receptor. Carbon atoms are purple; oxygen atoms are red; and hydrogen atoms are not shown. The phosphatase, which also makes contact with the receptor, is shown in green. Image credit: Cutler lab, UC Riverside.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Breakthrough research done earlier this year by a plant cell biologist at the University of California, Riverside has greatly accelerated scientists’ knowledge on how plants and crops can survive difficult environmental conditions such as drought.
Working on abscisic acid (ABA), a stress hormone produced naturally by plants, Sean Cutler’s laboratory showed in April 2009 how ABA helps plants survive by inhibiting their growth in times when water is unavailable – research that has important agricultural implications.
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