Welcome to the first episode of Ag Across Borders, a podcast that connects growers, researchers, industry professionals, and other stakeholders to share science-based information that matters in the field.

In this opening episode, your hosts introduce themselves and the mission behind the show. Dr. Raissa Debacker Moura is an assistant professor and extension plant pathologist at Montana State University. She works with cereals and pulses, and directs the regional pulse crops diagnostic lab. Joana Schroeder de Souza is a PhD student in entomology at Kansas State University and USDA, where she works on quarantine insects that could become new pests for U.S. farmers. Both grew up in Brazil, and they bring different angles to agriculture: Raissa from fruit and crop disease, Joana from agronomy, weeds, and insects.

In this episode, you'll learn:

- Why Ag Across Borders exists and how it plans to translate research into practical information for farmers

- Why research and extension depend on each other

- How the hosts' paths from Brazil through Nebraska, Kansas, Florida, and Montana shaped their work

- Why post-harvest quality, disease testing, and quarantine issues matter for growers' profitability

- How farmers weigh costs, weather, and disease pressure in tight decision windows, and why the honest answer is so often "it depends"

Have a topic or a guest in mind? Tell us what you'd like to hear about: mouralab.com/ag-across-borders

00:00 Highlight

00:17 Welcome to Ag Across Borders

01:39 Our mission: translating science for growers

02:58 Joana's story: Brazil, Nebraska, K-State, and USDA

09:42 Bringing Brazilian farmers to the Farm Progress Show

11:17 Agricultural diversity in the U.S. and Brazil

13:03 Raissa's story: coastal Brazil, pineapple, and Florida

17:15 From postdoc at K-State to lab and field

19:04 Moving to Montana and the crop diagnostic lab

21:03 Why post-harvest matters

22:50 Profitability and farmer decisions

25:36 Why the answer is always "it depends"

27:01 Building a community and suggesting topics

28:20 Future plans and careers

32:36 Closing thoughts