• Soybean cultivar development – Integrate traditional breeding with genomic technology to develop soybean varieties with high yield, enhanced quality, disease and pest resistance, and herbicide tolerance
• Increasing soybean yield with exotic germplasm:
  • Identify and utilize soybean genetic diversity for germplasm enhancement
  • Map yield QTL and introgress them into elite soybean germplasm lines
• Drought, heat, and flood tolerant varieties for the Midwest and South: Building on success:
  • Map QTL for drought tolerance
  • Breeding for drought tolerance
• High oleic soybean breeding – Develop soybean cultivars with high oleic and low linolenic acid contents
• Development of high yielding soybean cultivars and germplasm with higher seed protein content and improved amino acid composition
• Identification and utilization of resistance to soybean rust:
  • Evaluate soybean lines for rust resistance
  • Identify novel rust resistance loci
• Discovery of novel nematode resistance genes and development of productive soybeans with multiple-nematode resistance
• Soybean insect resistance – Identify and determine the function of insect-resistance genes in soybean, and deploy them in elite soybean varieties
• Genome-wide association studies for traits of interest and genomic selection for improving soybean yield and other traits of importance
• High throughput / or precision phenotyping for gene discovery and breeding selection

Teaching

Quantitative Aspects of Plant Breeding, PBGG (CRSS) 8880, Spring Semester, Even Years