Ranadheer Reddy Vennam

Ranadheer is a graduate student from India. He is currently specializing in Crop Physiology, Precision Agriculture, and Agronomy. He is passionate about advancing better farming practices and exploring the physiological responses of plants to abiotic stress conditions. His research interests include plant stress physiology, high throughput phenotyping, machine learning, climate-resilient agriculture, remote sensing applications, and crop modeling.

2023-Present Ph. D. (Plant and Environmental Sciences) Virginia Tech

2021-2023 M.S. (Plant and Soil Sciences) Mississippi State University

2015-2019 B.Sc. (Agriculture, honors) Lovely Professional University 

Ranadheer is working on developing innovative high-throughput methods using machine learning to predict peanut leaf wilting under heat and drought stress conditions. His research aims to evaluate leaf wilting as a potential efficient visual proxy for peanut internal plant physiological responses under heat and drought stress.

• Vennam, R.R., Bheemanahalli, R., Reddy, K.R., Dhillon, J., Zhang, X., Adeli, A. Early-Season Maize Responses to Salt Stress: Morpho-Physiological, Leaf Reflectance, And Mineral Composition. Journal of Agriculture and Food Research. 2024 (15), 10094. IF: 3.8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jafr.2024.100994

• Vennam, R.R., Poudel S., Ramamoorthy P., Samiappan S., Reddy K.R., Bheemanahalli R. Impact of Soil Moisture Stress During the Silk Emergence and Grain-Filling in Maize. Physiologia Plantarum. 2023.175(5), e14029. IF: 6.4. https://doi.org/10.1111/ppl.14029

• Vennam, R.R., Ramamoorthy P., Poudel S., Reddy K.R., Henry W.B., Bheemanahalli R. Developing Functional Relationships between Soil Moisture Content and Corn Early-Season Physiology, Growth, and Development. Plants. 2023 12(13), 2471. IF: 4.5. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12132471

• Poudel, S., Vennam, R.R., Sankarapillai, L.V., Liu, J., Reddy, K.R., Wijewardana, N., Mukhtar, M.S., Bheemanahalli, B. Negative synergistic effects of drought and heat during flowering and seed setting in soybean, Environmental and Experimental Botany. 2024 (222), 105769. IF: 5.7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envexpbot.2024.105769

• Silva, F.H.C.A.; Wijewardane, N.K.; Bheemanahalli, R.; Raja Reddy, K.; Zhang, X.; Vennam, R.R. Comparison of UV, Visible and near-Infrared, and Mid-Infrared Spectrometers to Estimate Maize and Sorghum Leaf Nutrients Using Dry-Intact and Ground Leaves. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 2023, 211, 108001. IF: 8.3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2023.108001

• Poudel, S., Vennam, R.R., Shrestha, A. et al. Resilience of soybean cultivars to drought stress during flowering and early-seed setting stages. Sci Rep 13, 1277 (2023). IF: 4.9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598- 023-28354-0

• Bheemanahalli, R., Vennam, R.R., Ramamoorthy, P., and Reddy, K.R. 2022. Effects of post-flowering heat and drought stresses on physiology, yield, and quality in maize (Zea mays L.). Plant Stress 6: 100106. IF: 5.0. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stress.2022.100106

• New research lends an ear to how drought impacts corn yields. Science news, ASA, CSSA, SSSA.  https://www.crops.org/news/science-news/new-research-lends-ear-how-drought-impacts-corn-yields/. The article has reached 11,388,060 and was shared in several regional extension articles.

• Outstanding Alumni Award 2024, for excellence in research, Lovely Professional University, May 4th, 2024. 
• Third place for poster presentation on ‘Leveraging UAV remote sensing to enhance phenotyping of peanut physiology for heat and drought tolerance’ at Virginia Tech Office for GIS and Remote Sensing Research Symposium, April 5th, Virginia Tech, VA. 
• Third place for poster presentation on ‘Impact of soil moisture stress at different phases of corn growth and development’, at ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting (CSSA section: Crop Physiology and Metabolism), October 28- November 1, St. Louis, MO. 
• First place for poster presentation on ‘Corn silk dynamics to soil moisture deficit and its impact on yield’, at Graduate Research Symposium (Spring-2023), Mississippi State University. 
• First place for poster presentation on ’Corn silk dynamics to soil moisture deficit and its impact on yield’, 87th Annual Meeting, (2023), Biloxi. 
• Recognized as a scholar in the Mississippi INBRE Graduate Scholars Symposium, Honoring Excellence in Science in Mississippi 87th Annual Meeting (2023), Biloxi, MS. 
• First place for poster presentation on ‘post-silking water-deficit stress impact on physiology and yield in corn’ at Graduate Research Symposium (Fall 2022), Mississippi State University. 
• First place for poster presentation on ‘Quantifying the Soil Moisture Deficit Effects on Corn Physiology and Early Season Vigor’ at Graduate Research Symposium (Fall 2022), Mississippi State University. 
• Second place for poster presentation on ‘Impact of Post-Flowering Heat and Drought Stresses on Physiology, Yield and Quality in Corn’ at Mississippi Academy of Sciences, 86th Annual Meeting (2022), Biloxi. 
• Special mention for participating in the Mississippi INBRE graduate scholar’s symposium ‘Honoring Excellence in Science in Mississippi’ at Mississippi Academy of Sciences, 86th Annual Meeting (2022), Biloxi. 
• Third place for poster presentation on ‘Organic cultivation - the new age trend’ at Sustainable Agriculture, Food and Nutrition, Lovely Professional University (2018), Phagwara.