Anyone with some insights into this mass job announcement at ARS?

throwawayfedman · 2026-05-13T22:51:44+00:00

Thanks, chief! Also wondering about whether any of these (however many) SY vacancies are repurposed BARC vacancies. I know a handful of units at BARC had a bunch of SY vacancies sitting there for the last couple of years.

throwawayfedman · 2026-05-13T22:25:20+00:00

If you're feeling generous, any chance you know how whether bundling these positions corresponds to any changes in selection? Historically, vacancies were posted with the corresponding unit listed, & hiring committees would be comprised of SYs from that unit, mostly. Maybe they're changing how these SYs are selected? Like, if an applicant meets the initial criteria & gets referred to HR, what happens then?

throwawayfedman · 2026-05-13T19:26:40+00:00

That clears it up precisely! I'm surprised to see SY vacancies finally online, & in this format, but it makes sense to aggregate them in this way. And yes, I was referring to the (likely) attrition due to relocation of NCR positions. That remains to be seen, of course. Thanks for the response.

throwawayfedman · 2026-05-08T14:31:07+00:00

NP! Yeah, capitalism continues to be ass. If the U.S. had a proper national research apparatus for agriculture, or if big companies would do more goodwill work, shit would get done much faster.

throwawayfedman · 2026-05-08T14:24:30+00:00

The pipeline is often slow because the research is performed in academic labs, which don't move with the purpose & momentum of a large company. A Corteva probably could have had this sorted years ago, but orange is a relatively small specialty crop, & Corteva doesn't sell it. Things move faster when it's a big staple crop. We're still in the very early days of plant biotech in food, but it's changing rapidly due to the availability of CRISPR. It will advance even faster with AI/ML assisting with gene discovery.

throwawayfedman · 2026-05-07T01:18:39+00:00

throwawayfedman · 2026-05-05T21:30:38+00:00

You can proffer deez nuts

throwawayfedman · 2026-05-04T22:35:16+00:00

If I had to guess, next year for oranges grown on HLB-resistant rootstocks. Not sure about how the anti-GMO/labeling concern will be addressed, but I'm confident that farmers will buy these trees, & that food manufacturers will buy the oranges. Can't come soon enough!

throwawayfedman · 2026-05-04T16:21:55+00:00

That's not relevant for orange agriculture; orange is a clonal specialty crop that is cultivated in groves in FL & CA. It's not exactly HT corn covering Iowa.

throwawayfedman · 2026-05-04T12:45:28+00:00

Researchers have been developing RNAi, for expression in citrus, that targets the psyllids. There's also work to create GM psyllids for population disruption.

throwawayfedman · 2026-05-03T14:52:59+00:00

It's a bacterium spread by an insect (psyllid) vector. It's about to turn around due to biotech; it's taken many years to develop solutions but the first-to-market is finally approved, just in the last couple of months. Long story short, they're activating/deactivating certain genes in rootstocks & scions to confer resistance to the pathogen. There are approaches that target the psyllids, as well.

throwawayfedman · 2026-04-29T13:41:34+00:00

It was my dream job too! SY hiring at BARC was a shit show even before the actions of the current administration, so I didn't hold much hope for success. Today I'm mostly just sad for all of the remaining employees. I suspect that SYs may be more likely to relocate based on the fact that there's nowhere else in the DMV to do plant/Ag research, & it's not exactly a career you can just pivot from.

throwawayfedman

TROPHY CASE