UTRF is celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2024. As part of this celebration, UTRF will highlight some of its long-term partnerships with UT inventors and startups in the coming months.
One founder is Robert Trigiano, UT Knoxville Chancellor’s Professor and UTIA Institute Professor in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at the UT Institute of Agriculture (UTIA). For the past 20 years, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences and taught scientific writing worldwide, including in China, Bolivia, Peru, Madagascar and Germany. He embraces the university’s Land-Grant Mission and hopes his research positively impacts the agricultural industry.
I’m most proud of my adherence to land grant mission and service,” said Trigiano. “Even though I don’t have the extension appointment, I feel responsible for my subject area within the state and solving problems.”
In 2005, UTIA professors Trigiano, Mark T. Windham, and Alan S. Windham, along with late professors Willard T. Witte and Effin T. Graham, co-founded a startup, Creative Agricultural Technologies (CAT), and licensed disease-resistant and new and novel dogwood cultivars to plant wholesale nurseries. CAT is one of the oldest UTRF startups in operation.
One of their first cultivators, Appalachian Spring, resulted from a search for dogwood specimens resilient to dogwood anthracnose, a fungal disease that decimated dogwood populations in the 1980s and 1990s. Mark Windham began to look for disease-resistant varieties in Catoctin Mountain Park, where Camp David, the presidential retreat, is located.
All the dogwoods were dead, except this little scraggly tree, which he called ‘presidential’ because it was near Camp David. It became ‘Appalachian Spring,'” said Trigiano. “Mark didn’t realize a foreign dignitary was visiting. He’s walking along, and suddenly, all these military members are pointing rifles at him. He was quite freaked out—I tease him about it constantly.”
With UTRF’s support, Trigiano and his team have cultivated 15 hardy dogwood varieties, including Appalachian Spring and Jean’s Appalachian Snow, which are resistant to powdery mildew. Trigiano has recently developed two new varieties: Erica’s Appalachian Sunrise and Rebecca’s Appalachian Angel, both resistant to powdery mildew. To date, he has filed 68 disclosures and has 12 patents with UTRF.
Last year, we had our best year ever,” said Trigiano. “Do you want to start a company? Talk to UTRF. Keep it simple. It doesn’t have to be complex. I think CAT is a good model for anyone wanting to start a company. All you have to do is work with UTRF. They’re easy to work with.”
Before Trigiano became a professor, academic journal editor, and dogwood cultivar researcher, he completed his master’s program in biology at Pennsylvania State University. Afterward, he served as an associate research agronomist for Green Giant Co., specializing in mushroom culture and plant pathology.
Then, they merged with Pillsbury Corporation and eliminated my position,” he joked. “I decided I couldn’t get into any more trouble, so I became a mushroom grower in Ontario, Canada (Eh?) for a year and then went to North Carolina State University to get my doctorate in plant pathology and botany.”
He took a postdoc position at UT Knoxville with the late Bob Conger, a UTK/UTIA professor and founding editor of Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences. In 1987, he began working in the Department of Ornamental Horticulture and Landscape Design, later moving to his current department in 2001.
UTRF wants to form and foster long-term partnerships with UT innovators. Passionate faculty members like Trigiano are wonderful to work with because they understand the importance of protecting university IP and transitioning their innovations into real-world settings, when possible,” said UTRF President Maha Krishnamurthy. “We look to our continued partnership with CAT.”