Specialty：Turfgrass Breeding and Molecular Genetics

My primary responsibility and research interest is breeding (applied and molecular) and cultivar development of warm- and cool-season turfgrass species for use in home lawns, athletic fields and golf courses.  This involves adopting holistic systems approach towards cultivar development, marketing and commercialization through industry collaborations; working interactively in the interdisciplinary areas of turfgrass science including turfgrass genomics, physiology, entomology, pathology, soils and socio-economics; developing high-throughput greenhouse/growth chamber phenotyping procedures to efficiently evaluate large breeding (and mapping) populations for important traits of interest including a wide range of biotic and abiotic stress tolerances.  My interests also include graduate student education and training of tomorrow’s plant breeders and turfgrass professionals capable of leading a successful career in academia and/or the turfgrass industry.

More information may be found on the Dallas AgriLife Research and Extension Center website at: https://dallas.tamu.edu/research/turf/”