Mark Holmes, ASPB SURF Fellow, Crop Sciences

Email: mwholme2@illinois.edu

Education:

Bachelor of Science, Crop Sciences               expected 2015

Concentrations: Plant Biotechnology and Molecular Biology

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL

Research:

            I started in the Leakey Lab as an undergraduate researcher in the Spring Semester of 2013. My task was to process soybean root images using WinRhizotron software to calculate root density. Since then I have shifted my work to the Setaria project and have worked on the Setaria experiments since the 2013 field season. Currently I am being funded through the ASPB Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship to conduct a QTL analysis on Setaria tillering genes. There have been candidate genes identified in previous studies, but I will be analyzing additional traits such as tiller angle and canopy density. The new phenotypic data will hopefully yield a more precise QTL than before to help better understand the genetic basis for tiller plasticity in response to light conditions. This may lead to novel traits to select for in C4 bionergy crop breeding programs to maximize biomass production by improving tiller plasticity and radiation interception efficiency.  My hope is that my findings from the QTL analysis will be published by the time I graduate in Spring 2015.

                  After graduation, I plan on pursuing a PhD in plant breeding working with crop tolerance to abiotic stress. Advances in marker-assisted selection and genetic engineering make plant breeding an exciting discipline for me as there are numerous ways to go about finding solutions to the problems presented by climate change and abiotic stressors.