Simon Fraher: Sweetpotato Genetics PostDoc
Simon Fraher is a highly skilled vegetable breeder finishing his doctorate this spring semester with NC State University’s Sweetpotato and Potato Breeding and Genetics Programs. His focus is to benefit the sweetpotato community with molecular marker development for guava root knot nematodes and pioneering genomic selection research.
Craig Yencho, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor and principal investigator of the lab, which includes national and international students and scientists, worked with Fraher and the team to adapt sweetpotatoes for North Carolina, the southeastern United States, and sub-Saharan Africa. They have expanded the sweetpotato germplasm base to tackle challenges posed by evolving pests, pathogens, and environmental changes. Fraher has also assisted his lab colleagues in selecting cultivars that offer improved flavor and nutritional compounds. These breeding efforts bolster North Carolina’s economy as a leading sweetpotato producer and help address food and nutritional insecurity in tropical regions around the world.
During his time with the Department of Horticultural Science, Fraher has had a strong sense of community. After joining the sweetpotato breeding and genetics lab for his master’s in 2019, he served as president of Pi Alpha Xi, a national horticulture honors society. During his doctoral studies, Fraher served as president of the Plant Breeding Club.
Fraher recently took some time to reflect on his path to sweetpotato breeding at NC State as he looks to his future and continuing his research as a postdoctoral scholar with Yencho’s lab.
Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m from Olympia, Washington. I grew up on the Puget Sound. My first job was in oyster and geoduck farming — in part, that inspired me to go into agriculture! I did my bachelor’s at Oregon State University and wrote an undergraduate thesis on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in nursery tree production. I took a few years off after earning my undergraduate degree and worked probably a dozen different jobs. I did a stint as a plumber’s apprentice. I did some City of San Diego ecological restoration contracts with my dad. I worked for a pumpkin, berry and brassica farm in Oregon, and I was a dishwasher and line cook for a while. It took about four years to realize that I wanted to get back into science, specifically plant breeding, after I worked with barley breeder Pat Hayes for a summer.
Why and when did you get into horticulture and plant breeding?
When I was a child, I hated getting my hands dirty, and I didn’t like any vegetables. But I loved being outside and I got into gardening very young. There was always something so satisfying about growing something from a seed, and once my taste buds matured, I began to love vegetables, all of them, especially the ones that I grew. I didn’t know plant breeding was a career path until I took a class at Oregon State University with Jim Myers, a vegetable breeder. The course was vegetable systematics, and in each section, we would sample a dozen varieties of carrot, or hot pepper or garlic, and evaluate them for various culinary and aesthetic traits. This was great fun, and Dr. Myers connected me with Pat Hayes in barley breeding. Spending a hot, dry Corvallis summer working with the Barley Project really educated me in how nuanced and fun plant breeding could be as a career. I knew from then on I wanted to be a plant breeder — although it took a few years to find a graduate program.
What brought you to NC State?
When I was looking at graduate schools, NC State was always at the top of my list. The number and diversity of plant breeding programs made me think I could probably get a graduate mentor — I just had to get my foot in the door with someone. I actually moved here before starting a grad program. I connected with my principal investigator, Craig Yencho, through a mutual friend, and he ended up hiring me as a summer research technician. This was in 2019, not long after the guava root-knot nematode was introduced in North Carolina. The projects I started during those first weeks went on to become the core of my Master of Science thesis and have also been a significant component of my dissertation research as well!
Can you tell us about your research? How will it be used?
The overarching theme of my research has been linking phenotype, or trait expression, with genotype, the genetic sequence of sweetpotato. If we understand how genetics are related to traits of interest, then we can select for traits without measuring them directly. Think of an oak tree (Raleigh is the City of Oaks, after all). If I wanted to breed oak trees for higher timber production, I’d first need to identify those that yielded the most timber. Well, it takes decades for a tree to mature. But if I had gene-trait associations, I could simply sprout an acorn, collect some DNA from the first leaves, and use the genome to predict lumber yield. That’s what we are trying to do in sweetpotato: use affordable genomic information to predict yield, shape, disease resistance, uniformity, color and more. This requires extensive phenotyping, but once we have validated genetic markers we can use for selection, our need to phenotype is reduced. That means we can make breeding decisions earlier, which shortens the breeding cycle, increases genetic gain for our traits of interest, and should result in faster variety development. This is critical in the face of new pests and diseases, like the guava root-knot nematode Meloidogyne enterolobii, which has been extremely disruptive for our industry. Fortunately, we now have marker-assisted selection for the first time in sweetpotato, and this allows us to identify nematode-resistant sweetpotatoes earlier in the breeding process. The ultimate goal is to provide our N.C. growers with a nematode-resistant variety to replace ‘Covington,’ the most important U.S. variety that was developed here at NC State. I think we are close to making it happen!
What has been the highlight of your graduate school experience?
Without question, the community. While the research and academics have been important in my development as a scientist, it has been the collaborative efforts of the sweetpotato community (and beyond) that made me feel at home in North Carolina. Yencho has introduced me to friends and colleagues both domestically and abroad. One day, I might be working with Jing Zhang or Mike Kudenov at the Plant Sciences Initiative to come up with a new method for high-throughput phenotyping for yield or nematode resistance. Another day, I might be on a call with colleagues in Uganda, Kenya, Brazil and Peru as we discuss experimental design and what’s next in genomic selection. I had the privilege of going to Uganda and meeting many of these scientists face to face, including World Food Prize recipient Robert Mwanga, who happened to be Yencho’s very first doctoral student! I’ve also really enjoyed the NC State students and student organizations, particularly the Plant Breeding Club. Please attend these club meetings if you haven’t already; there are always really insightful speakers across commodities, and, most importantly for the students, there’s always a free lunch!
What are your future goals?
I’d like to be a university professor running a vegetable breeding program. I want to train new scientists and learn from them as we push the limits of what was previously possible in our crop. Nearly every vegetable we eat today was domesticated from a wild relative that most would scarcely recognize. What plants will our great-grandkids be eating? I’d like to be the guy who helps answer that question.
Do you have any advice for incoming graduate students?
Yes, more than I could fit here. Start writing early. The literature review sets the foundation for your graduate studies, so do this at the beginning and add to it as you progress. Try to read at least three papers a week (more is better). As you read, take notes in complete sentences and include citations. Make separate notes about how these other papers impact your research (i.e., discussion points). Before you know it, you’ve got the scaffold of a literature review, and then it’s just a matter of putting the pieces together. Also, take pictures of everything during your research, and make sure to get some pictures of yourself in the lab, in the field, at conferences, etc. It really helps to have these when you’re putting together your final seminar!
