Ian Mellon

Bio

The Berry Breeding Lab at NC State focuses on developing new public cultivars of strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries that are adapted to fit the needs of growers in our state. Under the guidance of Dr. Gina Fernandez (Emeritus) and Dr. Mark Hoffmann, the lab is dedicated to releasing varieties that prioritize disease resistance, yield, and flavor that the growers of North Carolina demand.

Publications

• Beyond Fruit Detection: Spatiotemporal High-throughput Phenotyping Reveals Genotype-Specific Yield Dynamics in Strawberry, Plant Phenomics (2026)
• Fine-Mapping of the Vhc1 QTL for Apple Scab Resistance on Linkage Group 1 of ‘Honeycrisp’, Plant Breeding (2025)
• Genetic variation and population differentiation in North American, Central Asian and European isolates of Venturia inaequalis, BSPP (2023)