Want to learn more about a key crop with potential to weather climate change and give protein to the world? Come to a special presentation from TPSS, “Integrating Targeted and Skim Sequencing in the Molecular Breeding Toolbox” by David Hyten.
Dr. Hyten is an associate professor at the University of Nebraska Lincoln in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture. His lab is focused on basic genetic and genomic discoveries in soybeans, and translating them into applied methods for real-world improvement of soybean varieties. The program focuses specifically on improving agronomically important traits such as drought tolerance and response to water abundance.
As we experience climate change, making cultivars that are able to withstand drought and are highly responsive to water abundance will be key to feeding the world. Dr. Hyten’s lab is working toward understanding the underlying genetic diversity that leads to drought tolerance so it can be linked to this agronomically important phenotype, as well as understanding how genetic diversity interacts across diverse environments. To help translate that understanding into applied breeding methods, his lab also focuses on developing better methods, tools, and genomic breeding strategies for utilizing that knowledge within public and private soybean breeding programs.
A special area of interest of his lab is understanding genetic recombination in soybean. The goal of this research is to develop new techniques to allow breeders to manipulate recombination to incorporate essential genetic diversity into new breeding varieties, while maintaining yield gains needed to meet future demands from population growth. Through this work, his research program has the goal of accelerating the rate of genetic gain within soybean to meet the long-term challenges of feeding the world, and in combating the negative effects of climate change on soybean production.