It was February 22 when federal employees received Elon Musk’s first “What did you do last week?” email, directing them to list five accomplishments. Had that email arrived one week earlier, hop-research scientist Francisco Gonzalez says he knows exactly how he would have replied:
- Began collecting photosynthesis parameters from hops in a diversity study conducted under greenhouse conditions.
- Continued setting up our lab’s Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) instrument for upcoming soil and tissue analyses.
- Started drafting a manuscript based on collaborative research with another scientist.
- Began tissue preparation for total carbon analysis in a carbon stocks study.
- Worked on revising my [Research Position Evaluation System (RPES)] case write-up, which was due to the area office by March 20.
However, Gonzalez didn’t get a chance to respond—he was one of thousands of U.S. Department of Agriculture probationary employees who were told the week before that they’d been fired.
Gonzalez also was one of four scientists central to the USDA-ARS hop-research program—the same that developed such varieties as Cascade, Centennial, Triumph, and Vista. The firings of support staff who offered administrative, IT, and facility services further crippled the program.
While federal court cases related to the federal layoffs were ongoing—for example, a federal judge ruled February 27 that the probationary firings were probably illegal—there was no indication that the researchers would be reinstated. Meanwhile, the remaining researchers say that a federal hiring freeze leaves them unable to recruit the key technicians and staff necessary to meet their program objectives.
“It has been a devastating hit,” says Maggie Elliot, science and communications director for the Washington Hops Commission and Hop Growers of America. “All of that being eliminated overnight is very frightening.”