James Holland
USDA Professor
Maize Breeding & Genetics
Faculty
Williams Hall 1238
We are interested in understanding the nature of genetic variation within maize (field corn),Zea mays:
- How is genetic variation distributed among and within temperate inbred lines, temperate landraces, tropical inbred lines, and tropical accessions?
- Are there unique allelic variants in exotic, tropical maize that are absent from the U.S. breeding pool?
- Which genomic regions are associated with phenotypic variance for important agronomic traits (grain yield, flowering time, plant height, disease resistance)?
- How do allelic variations at different loci interact in their effects on phenotypes (is epistasis important, and how does it ramify from genic interactions to phenotypic interactions)?
- What are the most efficient breeding procedures for incorporating unique and favorable alleles from unadapted genetic backgrounds into well-adapted temperate lines?
- Can DNA marker-assisted selection aid us in this task?
In addition, we have a program to identify the genetic basis of resistance to corn ear rot caused by Fusarium fungal species and of resistance to the accumulation of the mycotoxin, fumonisin, caused by the fungus.
Publications
- A Genome-Wide Association Study To Understand the Effect of Fusarium verticillioides Infection on Seedlings of a Maize Diversity Panel, G3-GENES GENOMES GENETICS (2020)
- Dominance Effects and Functional Enrichments Improve Prediction of Agronomic Traits in Hybrid Maize, GENETICS (2020)
- The genetic architecture of the maize progenitor, teosinte, and how it was altered during maize domestication, PLOS GENETICS (2020)
- A Genome Wide Association Study Reveals Markers and Genes Associated with Resistance to Fusarium verticillioides Infection of Seedlings in a Maize Diversity Panel, G3-GENES GENOMES GENETICS (2019)
- Diverse Components of Resistance to Fusarium verticillioides Infection and Fumonisin Contamination in Four Maize Recombinant Inbred Families, TOXINS (2019)
- Genomic-Wide Association Study of Popping Expansion in Tropical Popcorn and Field Corn Germplasm, CROP SCIENCE (2019)
- Optimal Designs for Genomic Selection in Hybrid Crops, MOLECULAR PLANT (2019)
- The Genomic Basis for Short-Term Evolution of Environmental Adaptation in Maize, GENETICS (2019)
- The genetic architecture of teosinte catalyzed and constrained maize domestication, PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (2019)
- Training population selection and use of fixed effects to optimize genomic predictions in a historical USA winter wheat panel, THEORETICAL AND APPLIED GENETICS (2019)