COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND LIFE SCIENCES
	Jim Holland Research Geneticist (USDA) and Assistant Professor of CropScience	CROP SCIENCE PERSONNEL
	1238 Williams Hall Box 7620 Raleigh, NC 27695-7620	CURRICULUM VITAE
	Phone: (919) 513-4198 FAX: (919) 515-7959 james_holland@ncsu.edu

Current Research Projects

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.

Current Members of the Research Project

Josie Bloom: USDA-ARS Biological Sciences Technician
Josie is the lab manager with responsibility for collecting genotypic data from experimental corn populations using DNA markers. Josie is originally from Havelock, NC, USA and has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Molecular Biology/Biotechnology from East Carolina University.

Stella Salvo: USDA-ARS Biological Sciences Technician
Stella keeps the field-oriented aspects of the program running. She maintains seed stocks and organizes planting, harvesting, and pollinating of breeding nurseries and yield trials at four locations in North Carolina and in the winter nursery in Florida. Stella was born in the Philippines, raised in West Lafayette, IN, and has a BS from Purdue University and an MS in plant breeding from Colorado State University.

Nathan Coles, Ph.d. Student
Thesis topic: Genetics of photoperiod responses in tropical and temperate maize. Nate is from Salt Lake City, UT and has a BS in Biology from Brigham Young University.

Jesus Garcia-Zavala, Ph.D. Student
Thesis topic: Genetic variability in Mexican landrace populations undergoing improvement via participatory plant breeding. Jesus is from, Guanajuato, Mexico and has an Ingeniero Agronomo degree from Universidad Autonoma Chapingo and an MS in plant breeding from the Colegio de Postgraduados in Montecillos, Mexico.

Magen Starr, Ph.D. Student
Thesis topic: Response to selection for improved resistance to Fusarium ear rot in maize. She is from Illinois and has a BS in Crop Science from the University of Illinois.

Marco Oropeza-Rosas, Post-doctoral Researcher
Research topic: QTL mapping using nested association mapping in a population of >5,000 lines of maize. Marco is from the state of Puebla in Mexico and has an Ingeniero Agronomo degree from Universidad Autonoma Chapingo and an MS and Ph.D. in plant breeding from the Colegio de Postgraduados in Montecillos, Mexico. He was an Assistant Professor at the Colegio de Postgraduados Campus Veracruz in Mexico.

James Holland

For more information about Jim Holland, including PDF files of articles and EPISTACY software downloads, please visit: Jim Holland Homepage.