Richard Lally, a postgraduate student at IT Carlow’s enviroCORE research hub, beat hundreds of other postgraduate students to become Regional Winner for Europe/Africa in the graduate category of Alltech’s Young Scientist Competition 2016.

Richard, who is from Co Kildare, receives a $2,000 USD prize and an all-expenses paid trip to Lexington, Kentucky in May. There he will compete in the next stage of the competition as part of ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference, which takes place from 22 to 25 May. The winner of this competition will receive an overall winner's prize of $10,000 USD and a two-year, fully-funded postdoctoral position with global biotechnology company Alltech.

Lally's winning entry to the science competition, "Plant growth promoting Pseudomonads, their colonisation dynamics and agricultural potential", is based on research he carried out under the supervision of IT Carlow academic research staff and investigates three potential plant growth promoting strains for application in Brassica napus, an important food and biofuel crop. The research was carried out in conjunction with Teagasc crop research centre at Oak Park in Carlow.

The results show that the three strains contained important genes used in the role of plant growth promotion that could be important for use in agriculture.

Commenting on the win, Lally said he was "thrilled" to receive the news that he had won the regional stage of this competition. "I'm so proud that [IT Carlow's] work was selected over every other entry from the Europe/Africa category, a remarkable achievement for our research group. Currently, I'm preparing for the global stage of the event and I'm very much looking forward to taking part, representing IT Carlow and presenting the important work we do here in enviroCORE”, he said.

Richard’s supervisor, Dr David Ryan, commented: “Alltech is a global leader in crop science, animal nutrition and health and so this recognition is both a wonderful achievement for Richard and enviroCORE and an acknowledgment of the world class research being carried out at IT Carlow”.

IT Carlow discovers plant growth promoters for use in agriculture

A postgrad student from IT Carlow will soon compete for an opportunity to work with Alltech, due to his discovery of three potential plant growth promoters for use in an important food crop.