Eric Oseland received the 2022 William R. Lamberson Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award as part of this year’s Celebration of Excellence Awards, held April 19. Oseland completed his PhD in the Division of Plant Science and Technology. Oseland also attended MU for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He served as president of the Plant Sciences Graduate Student Association during his tenure.

The title of his dissertation was Research to Advance our Understanding of Off-target Dicamba Movement in United States Agriculture. Oseland’s dissertation consisted of three distinct projects all related to the central issue of off-target movement of dicamba. Components of this project have been published in the journals Pest Management Science and Remote Sensing and is under review for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“I first met Eric in 2016 when he came into my program as an undergraduate student worker,” said Kevin Bradley, professor in Plant Science and Technology and Oseland’s graduate advisor. “I immediately sensed his passion for agriculture and for answering our most important weed management problems through research.

“To my knowledge, this work was the first to identify stable atmospheric conditions (i.e., temperature inversions), soil pH and distance to the nearest water body as factors that influence the likelihood for off-target movement. The results of this work were instrumental in shaping some of the special requirements for dicamba applications that were implemented by the Missouri and Tennessee Departments of Agriculture and the Arkansas plant board during the 2018 and 2019 growing seasons.”